Many people growing up in Chicago in the 1990s recognized the names Bill Wennington and Dave Wannstedt, even if they weren’t sports fans.

Wennington played for the Chicago Bulls from 1993 to 1999 and won three NBA championships with the team, while Wannstedt served as the Chicago Bears coach from 1993 to 1998. Since their careers have ended, both Wennington and Wannstedt have transitioned over to the media side of sports, with Wannstedt becoming a broadcaster for Fox Sports since 2014 and Wennington the color analyst for Bulls radio broadcasts.

The two can now add on other titles, as both are coaches at St. Francis Xavier School in Wilmette. The seven-foot Wennington coaches sixth- and seventh-grade girls basketball, while Wannstedt was the defensive coordinator of the junior varsity football team, a team made up of fifth- and sixth-grade students.

Both coaches are in their first year coaching at the school and each had his own way of getting to the Wilmette school.

It was a way for Wannstedt to be closer to his grandson, while Wennington went out and helped his son Rob, who is the athletic director at St. Francis Xavier.

“I really didn’t have any intentions on helping out coaching or doing anything,” Wannstedt said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I just wanted to go up and got to see my grandson play. And then once I got up there, the head coach and the other coaches, were so nice to me. And they basically said, ‘Any chance you could help out a little bit?’

“So I said the days that I’m off I’ll come up and help out. So I would go up every week and pick the linemen, take the big guys, and have some fun with them.”

Having coached at both the collegiate and professional levels and then going to teaching kids who have never really played the game of football was quite the change for the former Bears coach.

“I just kept it as fundamentals,” he said. “I just think that they got to have a good base. They got to have good fundamentals if they’re going to play this thing. And that’s kind of where I kept my focus. I really never got into anything more advanced than that.”

As a parent, Wannstedt had two daughters, so he never had the opportunity to coach sons in football growing up. Of course, coaching in the NFL and college probably would have prevented that as well. But now, as a grandparent, he has six grandchildren, five of which are boys. His eldest grandson is the sixth-grader at St. Francis Xavier, playing tackle football for the first time.

“I’m going to be coaching for as long as my health holds up,” Wannstedt said. “I plan on coaching these young kids for a long time.

“I think seeing him enjoy it (was the most rewarding part). As a kid, the first time, not knowing how to put his shoulder pads on and then seeing him at the end of the year where he got better at some of the skills you have to do and enjoying it. I would say when you make improvement and you enjoy what you’re doing, that was awful rewarding.”

From one hardwood to the other

Unlike Wannstedt, this wasn’t Wennington’s first go-around at coaching children. When Rob was growing up, he’d take his turn coaching his teams and others as well.

The big difference between then and coaching St. Francis Xavier, a school that draws kids from Wilmette, Winnetka and other surrounding suburbs, is that he would be coaching girls this time, not boys.

“My dad’s been around basketball for 30-plus years and he’s still a radio broadcaster for the Bulls,” St. Francis Xavier athletic director Rob Wennington said. “So he’s got a very busy travel schedule because he travels with the Bulls when they’re on road trips.

“But coaching has always been part of his DNA. And the cool part was when I was a young kid growing up, I was fortunate enough to have him coach me a few years and it’s something that I know he’s aspired to get back into, but didn’t really know how that path would open up. When I was in search of a few coaches, we just had a conversation and he said ‘Can I take a look at your schedule? Will I be available enough in my own to make it work, and could you give me a couple assistants to fill in gaps when I’m unavailable?’ So we did just that and it worked out for him to coach one of our sixth and one of our seventh grade girls teams.

And actually, I was at a (recent) game and it’s cool to see him enjoy himself and give back.”

With the school having a no-cut policy and the recent merging with St. Joseph, St. Francis Xavier has 17 basketball teams this year, meaning that gym space has been limited. So much so, that the team really only practices a couple days a week, sometimes only once.

The limited schedule has allowed Wennington to be present at many games and practices, so that hasn’t been an issue for the teams.

Like Wannstedt, the return to coaching has been a rewarding one.

“For me, it’s (about) growing the game,” he said. “I love the game of basketball and what it’s done for me. It’s enabled me to obviously have a better life because I played professionally If I can grow the game by getting young people to love it, and they participate in it even more, then that’s fantastic.

“Really, just the day-to-day interaction with the kids is phenomenal. They’re great kids. You get to see them literally grow in front of you.”