By Jeff Vorva
Correspondent
For Corey Wolf, obtaining the ultimate high school basketball prize started in the summer of 2007.
Wolf was playing for a Richards team that had showed much promise, having gone 26-3 and winning a regional title the previous season. Then-Bulldogs coach John Chappetto let his players know when summer league play began how good he thought they could be.
Richards would go 30-4 in 2007-2008 and win the first boys basketball title in school history as well as the first IHSA Class 4A boys hoops title (the tournament was expanded from two classes to four that season).
Wolf said the mindset all started the previous summer. The Bulldogs went into the season believing they could bring a state title back to Oak Lawn.
“That’s what we thought,” Wolf said. “I don’t know if everyone else thought so, but coach Chappetto told us in the summer that we can win state. That got into our head, and we started believing it.”
Although he was a backup guard that season, he said he prided himself on being a vocal leader of the team.
Sixteen years later, Wolf is the head coach at Shepard. He succeeds Tony Chiuccariello, who coached the team from 1999 to 2024.
While the Astros are likely not ready to win a state championship yet, Wolf is using this summer to help build what he hopes is a successful foundation.
“I’m living the dream,” he said on June 14 after a summer league game against Argo at the Ray Milnes Shootout at Stagg. “I’m really excited for the opportunity. We have a great group of kids. It’s really good to mesh it and jell it.”
Wolf, who was recently an assistant at Richards, has identified some of the unique challenges of being a head coach.
“The administrative side is the biggest adjustment,” he said. “There is paperwork and bus scheduling and making sure the whole program is running top to bottom the way we want it to be.
“As an assistant, I only had to worry about my guys.”
Wolf is just the fourth Astros boys basketball coach since 1976, joining a link featuring Kurt Enzminger, Ron Woods and Chiuccarriello.
Chiuccarriello’s long tenure with the Astros had some good times and lean times, but he surpassed 300 wins during his 25 seasons in Palos Heights. He guided the team to a pair of regional titles and 23-win seasons in 2000-2001 and 2001-2002.