CCL BASKETBALL
Rams finish in third place in CLASS 4A
Lions finish in 4th place in CLASS 3A!
RAMS & LIONS Headed to STATE!
partans, Lions, Rams & Wolfpack all one game away from STATE!
Ten CCL Schools capture IHSA Basketball Regional Championships!
Rams capture third consecutive CCL BK title; Lions are your White division champions!
CCL BasKETball - A History of Success in America's Game
Basketball has always been a tall man's game… except when it isn't.
A realization that their mostly immigrant clientele included a lot of short people, coupled with a desire to involve as many youngsters as possible in healthy afterschool recreation, prompted founding administrators to adopt a two-tiered system of basketball: heavyweight and lightweight, when the Catholic League was formed in 1912.
The league would feature separate levels of varsity competition for players of varying sizes. Weight was, originally, the determining factor. Later it was changed to height: a 5-foot-8-inch limit, then a still less-than-towering 5 foot 9 inches.
The names never changed; the bigger team was known as the “heavies” and the smaller one as the “lights” for the 60-plus years the system existed.
Lightweight basketball went away when the Catholic League joined the IHSA for the 1973-74 school year. Mendel, which also has gone away, holds the distinction of being the last lightweight league champion, crowned in 1973. Some still mourn the passing of short-guy basketball.
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