Rich Township High School gym, Richton Park

Rich is Dipped in basketball tradition

Rich Township High School is both an old and new school depending on how you view your high school teams before and after consolidations and closures. As a name, Rich Township High School first opened in 1952 in Park Forest. Nine-years later, 1961, the school district opened a new high school campus in Olympia Fields, naming it Rich Central and changing the original school’s name to Rich East. Eleven-years after that a third campus was built for a growing student population and Rich South High School opened in Richton Park in 1972.

Due to a declining enrollment over the 2010s and the aging infrastructure of the East campus, in 2020 the schools combined under one banner and two campuses. All students attend Rich Township High School, now known as the Raptors, with the Central and South buildings staying open. Students in the district have a choice to attend the STEM campus, which is the old Rich Central building or the Fine Arts campus which was Rich South.

Varsity basketball is held at the Fine Arts campus, which is the campus this page is dedicated to.

In one of the state’s most well-thought out logos, Rich Township’s new logo incorporates the old and new team names. A torch for the Olympians of Central, a spaceship in flight for the Rockets of East, stars for the Stars of South, and lastly a dinosaur claw for the Raptors of modern-day Rich Township. A nice touch to it all is the combination of the logos makes the letter “R”.

The Stars of the Big Dipper

Just a year after opening as Rich South in 1972, the school started a holiday basketball tournament. Playing off the team name “Stars” the Big Dipper Holiday Tournament was born in 1973. The Dipper has been a staple for mostly high schools in the south suburbs or south side of Chicago. Although teams from Evanston Township and Watseka (about 40 miles south of Kankakee) have played here.

Like any local tournament, there have been up and down years depending on the talent level of the area schools. The 2023 tournament include the future 4A state champs and tournament winner in Homewood-Flossmoor. As they faced off against a Thornton team lead by 4-star recruit and future Illini Morez Johnson. With, both teams being local, the Saturday night championship was well attended.

Getting it right for photographers

Besides having newer LED lights that make photographing at high speeds easier at Rich Township, they took a page from the professional and college arenas game by painting their ceiling black. You can see in the two images below how much of a difference the ceiling color can make. Want to see what the difference looks like? Check out my post on getting a gym right for photographing basketball.

The Field House at Rich Township

Part of the consolidation of the three Rich high schools (East, Central, and South) is that the remaining campuses got some really nice upgrades. Rich South, now Rich Township’s Fine Arts & Communications campus got a new $48-million field house in 2022.

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