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Philadelphia prep basketball star commits to Wake Forest
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Published: August 5, 2008
By Dan Collins
JOURNAL REPORTER
Tony Chenault broke some hometown hearts today when he announced his intentions to play basketball at Wake Forest.
Chenault, a 6-2, 170-pound guard, will be a junior this season at Neumann-Goretti High School in Philadelphia and plans to arrive at Wake Forest in time for the 2010-11 season.
Carl Arrigale, the head coach at Neumann-Goretti High School, said that Chenault chose Wake Forest over Villanova — where he was scheduled to visit on Thursday. But Villanova was apparently not Chenault's only option if he wanted to stay home to play his college basketball.
"To me it has kind of been a two-horse race the whole time between Wake Forest and Villanova," Arrigale said. "There was also Marquette and Providence, and Pitt was around forever. Indiana has been around. Florida and Texas have watched (him).
"If he was going to go away, he was going to go to Wake Forest. If he was going to stay home, it was going to be Villanova. But he had all the city schools (after him). He could have made a phone call any day to any of those schools and said 'I want to come, do you want to announce it?'
"And they would have all said 'Yes.'"
Philadelphia is known for producing hard-nosed, competitive guards. Arrigale said that Chenault certainly fills the bill.
Jeff Battle, an assistant coach at Wake Forest, learned his basketball game growing up in Philadelphia before playing guard at Marshall. Arrigale said that Battle and Chenault formed a tight bond during the recruiting process.
"His biggest asset is sometimes his biggest detriment, in that he's just so competitive," Arrigale said of Chenault. "You draw a fine line between trying to curb that a little bit because you don't want to take that away from a kid.
"He's so competitive where he plays himself into exhaustion sometimes."
Arrigale said that Chenault is stronger and more powerful than his size might suggest, calling him a power point guard.
"He can guard up to … four positions for us at the high-school level, depending on how big the other teams' (power forwards) are," Arrigale said. "He's a terrific penetrator, real strong.
"He's improving — every day — his shooting. He's actually a good shooter now. I expect him to be a really good shooter by the time he's ready to graduate from high school. He's gotten better every year shooting the ball."
Chenault is the second player in the class of 2010-11 to commit to Wake Forest. Earlier, the Deacons received a commitment from 6-3 wing guard J.T. Terrell of Burlington Cummings High School.
C.J. Harris, a 6-2 guard from Mount Tabor High School in Winston-Salem has committed to the Deacons for 2009-10.
Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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