Judah Mallette was a 12-year-old ballboy along for the ride when Phillips won its — and the Public League’s — second state football title in 2017.

”I was there for every game,” said Mallette, now a senior receiver with Power Five scholarship offers playing for Hope Academy. ”It was just like, to be honest, so far in my 17 years of living, one of the best experiences of my life. Seeing the journey from the beginning of the season to the height of the season and especially through all the adversity that they faced, it was definitely special. . . .

”I just thought to myself: ‘This is something that I want to be part of a few years down the road from now. And doing it with my dad would make it 10 times more special.’ ”

Mallette’s dad, Chris, was an assistant on that Phillips team, part of a run through the Public League that also included stops as an assistant at Simeon and Young. When Young wanted to reboot its program in 2018 after having to suspend it because of low numbers the year before, the school turned to Mallette.

He guided the Dolphins to an 8-0 record, then left after one season to take over at Hope. Four seasons later, the Mallettes have a chance to be part of more Illinois high school football history. No Chicago-area school has won a Class 1A title since Hampshire in 1979, and no West Side program — public or private — ever has won state.

In their fourth and final season together, the Mallettes were unbeaten through six games, near the top of Class 1A in the Associated Press’ rankings and dreaming big.

”We begin the season talking about state,” Chris Mallette said. ”The dream is to dream. . . . Our aspirations have always been to win state. I don’t believe in taking the dream and hiding it in the Porta Potty across the street. You put it on the mantel.”

Chris Mallette didn’t always expect to be chasing that dream at Hope Academy, a small private school (enrollment: 246) just west of the Illinois Medical District.

”When I went to Young, I thought I’d be at Whitney Young for 30 years,” he said. ”I thought I’d sunset coaching and my professional career at Young. I was willing to transition from practicing law and the things I was doing with the city of Chicago [in violence prevention] to just teaching. . . . Then it just wasn’t the right fit.”

Mallette talked with Hope Academy officials and decided the school would be a better fit with its faith-based approach and less restrictive policies.

”There were a lot of things going on in CPS to protect kids,” Mallette said. ”A lot of rules were instituted, but a lot of the rules . . . were counterintuitive to the role of high school football coach, especially the role of a high school football coach in the inner city.”

In CPS, Mallette said, if he knew of a student-athlete having suicidal thoughts, ”I’ve got to go through 10 hoops. Now I just drive to the house, take the kid out for a cup of coffee. We sit, we talk and we buy time as we get to the next step of how we’re going to get help.”

All of that is a way of saying Hope Academy football is about a lot more than what happens on the field — for Mallette and for his players. Among the team’s catchphrases are ”Practice is everything” and ”LEO [love each other].”

”This thing is about football, but when you really strip it down, this program is not about football at all,” Mallette said. ”It’s about brotherhood — and sisterhood. We have two girls on the team.”

Mallette’s blueprint at Hope includes nods to some of his Public League coaching mentors: Simeon’s Jesse Chick and Dante Culbreath, Phillips’ Troy McAllister and Dunbar’s Glenn Johnson.

Eddie Jenkins Jr., Hope’s senior quarterback, attests to Mallette’s influence.

”I was, like, the fourth-string quarterback when I got here,” said Jenkins, who had 1,317 total yards and 21 touchdowns through six games. ”And then I started to actually listen to coach Mallette and buy in to what he was saying. These last three years, he really changed my life. He really developed me into the young man and football player that I am right now.”

Judah Mallette, who had 734 all-purpose yards and eight touchdowns through six games, obviously has a lot longer history with his dad, dating to youth football.

”It’s definitely been a different experience playing for him in high school,” Judah said. ”But I feel like over time our relationship has gotten better, chemistry has gotten better. It makes me kind of emotional thinking this is my last year.”

If it ends on Thanksgiving weekend at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, that ballboy’s dream will have come true.

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Coaches and/or athletic directors, please email info on your team to [email protected]. Email is preferred, anything that arrives via Twitter DM will go out last. I’ll tweet out a preview on every team that sends in the information. You can follow along on Twitter @michaelsobrien or read the previews here. All Illinois schools are eligible, not just schools in the Sun-Times coverage area. Please include the following:

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The 2022-23 Twitter Previews

Schaumburg: Coach Jason Tucker takes over. Sophomore guards Jordan Tunis and Javonte McCoy will start. Good size with 6-8 Edvin Bosnjak, 6-7 Clark Easley and 6-6 Tyler March. Building year, program is loaded with young talent.

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Three people were killed and three others were wounded by gunfire Thursday across Chicago.

A man was found shot to death in West Englewood. Joseph Jackson, 32, was found in the 1300 block of West 73rd Street with multiple gunshot wounds about 3:50 a.m., Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. He was transported to St. Bernard Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The circumstances of the shooting were unknown, according to police.Later Thursday, an 18-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. He was walking in the 4700 block of South Ashland Avenue about 9:05 p.m. when someone in a passing vehicle opened fire, police said. The man was shot in the chest and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.About an hour later, a man was found shot to death in Washington Heights on the South Side. Officers responding to shots fired about 10 p.m. found the 64-year-old unresponsive in an alley in the 10300 block of South Green Street, Chicago police said. He suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Three others were wounded by gunfire Thursday.

On Wednesday, a man was shot by officers inside a police station and a man was shot during a robbery in Chicago.

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Forward Reese Johnson knows how to dish out a hit. And it took him only two preseason games under new Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson to make that abundantly clear.

“He went right after [Mo] Seider, their best defenseman, physically,” Richardson recalled of the Hawks-Red Wings game last weekend. “Not trying to hurt him — just kind of [ticking] him off. He was in his face and ran him a few times, and it gets everyone else all grumpy. [Dylan] Larkin went after him once because of it.

“He knows that’s what it’s going to take for him to play in this league. He’s going to be a pesky, feisty guy.”

Indeed, up to this point, Johnson’s eagerness to throw his body around has created a role and defined his identity on the Hawks. In 37 games last season, his first as an NHL regular, he was credited with a whopping 141 hits and ranked fourth among eligible forwards in hits per minute. On the other hand, he tallied just one goal and five assists.

Realistically, at 24, he isn’t going to suddenly evolve into a dynamic playmaker. But he’d like to diversify his game as much as possible. He might rarely score, but if he can finish shifts in the offensive zone after starting them in the defensive zone, he can at least help teammates generate scoring chances.

“A huge part of [my game] is bringing energy, but there’s a time — and I’ve talked about this with management and coaches — where there needs to be calmness in my game to hold onto pucks and make plays,” Johnson said. “And then you have to be able to switch that over when you’re going on the forecheck as the ‘F1.’

“It’s not always 100 miles an hour. There’s times where you have to go finish checks and all that stuff, but that’s not all of it.”

Hawks captain Jonathan Toews has been a strong influence in Johnson’s quest to find that calmness. Johnson lived in Toews’ home last season. It wasn’t always literally calm — Johnson brought “the whole family,” including his girlfriend and dog, Toews noted with a laugh — but the two players, at vastly different stages of life and career, developed a close friendship.

They both grew up in western Canada — Johnson in Regina, Saskatchewan, Toews in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Their personalities are similar, rooted in understated hard work. Both live private lives. Neither is particularly active on social media. Yet in private conversations, they often dove into the psychology and meaning of hockey and sports in general.

“We got past the surface-layer stuff and got to know each other on a deeper level and talked about a lot of different aspects of the game,” Toews said. “It’s fun to learn about how guys think, and who they are as people, and what makes them good at hockey and what you can take from them.”

All the while, Johnson watched how Toews went about his business on and off the ice, then tried to integrate those lessons into his own style. Faceoffs are one example of the difference that made. While most rookie centers struggle at the dot, Johnson won 50.5% of his 212 draws.

When Johnson and Toews were sidelined simultaneously from late January to early March — Johnson recovering from a broken collarbone, Toews from a concussion — they skated one-on-one every day, which gave Johnson even more insight into Toews’ routines.

“Seeing how he carries himself with his calmness and poise with the puck, a lot of guys can learn from a guy like him,” Johnson said. “The way he holds onto pucks and his demeanor with the puck is pretty special.”

Johnson has now found his own place to live in Chicago, enjoying the job security of a two-year, one-way contract he signed in March. It appears he’ll probably outlast Toews on the Hawks.

Toews believes Johnson’s efforts to evolve into a multi-dimensional player will afford him a long NHL career.

“He does all the little things right,” Toews said. “He’s [working] 24/7 on how he takes care of his body and gets ready for the next game and focuses his mind. [He’s always] trying to totally scan the territory and make sure he’s not leaving any bases untouched.

“It’s fun to see with a young guy like that. He’s going to learn and get even better. I’ve really enjoyed being around him.”

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