Labor of love

STERLING - They watched him watch. They pointed - fingers and cameras. They nudged. They grabbed. They whispered. They posed for pictures, smiles spilling all over their faces. One man stood, beside himself, outside Musgrove Fieldhouse during halftime of last Tuesday's Sterling-Morrison game. "Honey, Bruce Weber's here!" he told the person on the other end of the line. "You know, the Illinois coach." He posed with cheerleaders and shook hands with fellow coaches. "It's fun," Weber said of the interaction. Then, of course, in his old, modest way, Weber offered a bit of reality. "Obviously, if we're doing well, it's better," he continued. "Sometimes it gets overboard a little bit. But I'd rather have it positive and not negative. I'm always hoping somebody wants my autograph, because someday they might not want it anymore." One autograph Weber recently got was that of Sterling senior Joseph Bertrand, on a national letter of intent. Three others came the same day, Wednesday, Nov. 12 - D.J. Richardson, Brandon Paul and Tyler Griffey. Making small talk as he sat seven rows up the wooden bleachers behind the Sterling bench, next to Golden Warriors coach Pete Goff's wife, Molly, Weber watched part of his future in Bertrand. Why bother hopping on a private plane and flying into Whiteside County Airport? Just to say hello? As usual, Weber wore his heart on the sleeve of his suit coat when answering. "As many times as we can, we'll show [the recruits] some love," Weber said as he leaned against the side of the concrete steps that lead to the Sterling locker room. Five feet away, a group gathered, cell phones forming a shield in front of them. "You guys want a picture?" Weber asked. He excused himself to give the people something to talk about. "I don't get the plane all the time," he said, almost humbly, as he jumped right back into mid-thought. "I use it about once a month. I want to be as efficient as possible." Weber said he plans to make the most of his limited visits. That we haven't seen the last of him or his assistants. That he'll continue to keep one eye looking ahead and both eyes on the now. He wants his 6-foot-6 recruit from the land of Sauk to do the same. Wants him to "lead his team downstate, because that's the sign of a special player." Thirty points per does not the coach expect. Points, he said, don't matter much. "They have a good team," Weber said of Sterling. "They could make a nice run again. I told Joseph I don't care how many points he scores. If you're going to have goals, shoot for triple-doubles." Bertrand is used to having Weber in the audience. Still, the kid with an ego the size of salt grain, is happy to see his future boss in the gym. "I'm glad he came out to see how we have progressed, how I have progressed," Bertrand said. Notice how he stressed the "we?" As in the Golden Warriors. Bertrand's not thinking college quite yet. Face buried in his cell phone, never-ending fingers dancing on the keypad as texted, Bertrand sat atop a stool in the near-empty Sterling locker room Tuesday night. His mind was on the recent win. On whomever was on the receiving end of his message. On playing ping-pong at Weber's house during a visit. "We really didn't play, just kind of hit back and forth," Bertrand said of his match against Weber. "The real match was against Chester [Frazier], and I don't want to talk about that." Behind a closed door, in Goff's cramped office some 8 or 9 feet away, Weber, Goff and some Sterling assistants, hints of magic marker in the air, dissected basketball plays on a marker board. "It was kind of on my mind that he was here," Bertrand said. "It was hard for it not to be. When he's standing down there, outside the locker room and everybody's pointing and like, 'Oh, there he is.' " Just as quickly, he was gone, on a 25-minute flight back to Champaign. But I have a feeling he'll be back. I have a feeling there's plenty more love.