Jon J. Kerr's Blog

STATE OF YOUTH FOOTBALL IN LAKE FOREST/LAKE BLUFF: HOW WE MOVE FORWARD

this article first appeared on ScoutsFootball.com 

Over a year ago, I published a series of articles on the website ScoutsFootball.com titled ‘State 2022.’

The controlling idea throughout the series was how the Lake Forest High School football program could get to and win a state title by the year 2022.

One of the articles focused on the feeder program.

Saturday, the state semifinals are played in all eight classes. Of all teams participating, it is all but a guarantee they have robust feeder programs. If you interviewed each starting player from Loyola or Lincoln-Way East or from St. Charles North or Batavia or Cary-Grove or Notre Dame, and asked them this question: ‘when did you first learn to love football?’ almost every one of them would respond…’when I first played for the Junior Chargers’ or ‘I joined the Junior Trojans in 5th grade’ or ‘I was hooked after my first year with St. Mary’s…’ etc, etc, etc.

If Lake Forest is to be competing in one of those semifinal games in the coming years it will be the result of the same origins. 

It’s a simple formula: exposure to the sport at a young age, a great overall experience, understanding the sport is a continuum, desire to keep playing as they enroll in high school. 

Neat and tidy, rinse and repeat.

As we know real life is not that simple. Aphorisms are easy to say but hardly applicable to day-to-day circumstances. Every community has unique challenges not solved with a pithy ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach. Certainly not tackle football at the youth level.

A year ago, I believed the feeder program in Lake Forest/Lake Bluff to be broken. We (I coach in the program so forgive me for my plurality) had fallen behind in numbers, resources and thus, competitiveness. Changes were necessary if the program was to continue.

In 2018, a handful of changes came. Infrastructure and culture improved, as did results. But much more needs to be done.

Here are more specifics on where advancements were made and ideas to help ensure the program is healthy and strong in the coming years.

WHERE IMPROVEMENTS WERE MADE

1. Organization. For the better part of the LF/LB feeder program’s history, it was a member of the Central Suburban Youth Football League. This included feeder teams for New Trier, Evanston, Deerfield, Vernon Hills, Glenbrook North and other northern suburban schools. The league had solid, well coached teams (the high school programs in those communities are very good) but over the years, the leadership became dysfunctional. Program supervisors at the LF Recreation Department (which controls the Jr. Scouts program) made the wise decision to switch leagues and in 2018, we played in the Tri-County Youth Football League. One of the largest youth football leagues in the country, the TCYFL proved to be a great fit. From top to bottom, it is well-managed and fields very competitive teams. We held our own, as our two teams, lights and middleweights, made the playoffs.

2. Culture. This past summer, the long-standing St. Mary’s middle school program disbanded. This development potentially meant no team for Crusaders football players who still wanted to participate in the sport. A handful of them decided to play for the Vaders, a team in the Council 2 Football League. A larger group found a landing spot with the Jr. Scouts program. I can confidently speak for both the middle and lightweight teams—the St. Mary’s kids were the best free agent pickups in the history of the Jr. Scouts program. Not only did the kids provide an influx of talent, but their spirit and desire to learn and improve was infectious. The parents of these young men (three dad’s whom coached) added a dose of guardianship and advocacy very much needed. ‘Culture’ is a term thrown around in our society quite loosely. I witnessed first hand a level of genuine care and commitment from these families from which a program ‘culture’ was hatched.

3. Football. Because of improvements in No. 1 and No. 2, we were better in the actual playing of football. As stated earlier, our teams made the postseason, something that had to be earned in this new league. The middleweights got better as the season progressed and the lightweights defeated blue blood programs New Trier and Lake Zurich. Our eighth graders are better equipped to handle the next level of football at LFHS and if we did formal exit interviews, I’d be very surprised if almost every 5th, 6th and 7th grader didn’t say they had a positive experience.

HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER

1. Hybrid public/private model. There are so many decisions that go into running any sports program. Facilities, equipment, transportation, personnel, coaching, etc. Currently, and as it’s always been, most of these decisions are laid at the desk of the program supervisor. He is an employee of the LF Parks and Recreation Department and does the best job he can with the resources available to him. Running the entirety of the program has become too numerous for one person to handle. We need to move in the direction of a hybrid private/public model where some decisions/infrastructure are still municipally-driven but other aspects of running a youth sports league need to be transferred to private citizens and stakeholders in the program. This is not a re-invent-the-wheel situation in LF/LB. This structure is currently being followed in baseball, lacrosse and ice hockey and has been for years. It’s a matter of iterating the model for football for 2018 and beyond.

2. Multiple entry points. It’s one thing to hold the players we have now. It’s something entirely different to attract new athletes into the sport. Younger parents want choices. We have to give them options other than 11-on-11 tackle football. Whether those options are flag, modified tackle, 7-on-7, etc., there needs to be different entry points for families who want to expose their child to football. Baseball has T-ball, parent-pitch, then player-pitch. USA (ice) hockey doesn’t allow body checking under the age of 12. These are well thought-out incremental progressions backed by strong messaging from the sport’s governing bodies. We need to do the same in LF/LB if football is going to grow in the next decade.

3. Unity. Since the conclusion of the 2018 season a few weeks ago, and even before the end of the season, there is a movement to re-start the St. Mary’s program. We all can agree how indelible football is to the identity of many Catholic schools. All LF/LB residents should show nothing but support for this initiative. But it should be done as a joint, not separate, operation. How do we combine the strengths of all vested parties and do what’s best for our football-loving kids? Having them play together as middle schoolers (and younger) just as they will in high school is a front-and-center controlling idea that should drive every decision made moving forward.

CONCLUSION

Here in late 2018, we in a position to take the youth football program to new heights. I could not have written this article in year ago. There were too many problems, many of which seemed unsolvable. Not now. We have momentum in the program and I think leading with a message of unity and community, backed by an actionable plan, will allow for our kids to have the best experience possible playing football in the years to come.

On Carmel Catholic: The Devil You Know

One of the more famous phrases in American history over the past several decades has found new life over the last year.

We are a scandal-ridden culture, some worthy of our attention, others mere bubble-gum chewing time killers. Time and time again, for the incidents with legs, the unethical behavior reported on would have been forgotten by the next news cycle if only the principal figure had followed procedure founded and later fumbled by President Richard Nixon during Watergate in the 1970’s.

“The cover-up is always worse than the crime.”

The events at Carmel over the past several months are worthy of this analogy.

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Let’s be clear: I don’t think any criminal activity has been committed. No one should be arrested.

For me, ‘cover-up’ stories always have a common thread, a through narrative linking all scenarios.

Abuse of power.

James Madison may have been the first American statesman to recognize and verbalize the sins of corruption in the 18th century when he said “liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also the abuse of power.” Madison went onto become our fourth president. His astute conscientiousness was well before his time.

Whether it be burglarizing your enemies, as Nixon endorsed, committing insider trading, or believing property is yours based on birthright, all abuse of power protagonists share a common personality characteristic.

Insecurity. A spinelessness grounded in insecurity.

When these individuals are handed keys to a kingdom, casualties soon follow in many forms.

They, the abuser, might say casualties are necessary. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole and in order to achieve the visionary’s version of the ‘whole’, weak sums must be replaced. They, the abuser in charge, are entitled to add individuals to the flock that share their vision for the organization. That is true. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, they might say, and when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

If history is any judge, change disguised as innovation or modernization can instead be actions of lassitude or egotism. Both feed the other, the result an unholy mess for all parties.

Anyone follow recent events at Willow Creek church in Barrington? An unprecedented housecleaning for a church that size. The problem started with the questionable actions of a star founder, Bill Hybels. Once exposed, rather than remove the person at the source of allegations, those in charge chose to believe the denials of Hybels and marginalize the accusers. What happened next is so predictable—predators never stop at one. There are always other victims. Once you go to bat for a liar who, as it turns out, has more skeletons in the closet, well, that dirty soap can’t be rinsed and put back in the jar.

I get it. It had to be incredibly hard to stand up to a charismatic zealot like Hybels. Whatever the reasons for inaction (admiration? intimidation? Both?), everyone is now gone, all casualties of a serial abuser.

The same result does not have to happen at Carmel. But it could if people are not paying attention.

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Fundraising is a 12-month-a-year business for private schools. When the first envelopes arrive in the mailbox this late summer or fall, consider asking these questions before you write a check:

*why have there been so many faculty changes from last year to this?

*why did the previous principal get fired?

*who is the new principal and was proper due diligence done before hiring? Was this person hired because they are best candidate for Carmel moving forward or because they had a previous relationship with the person in charge?

*why was the athletic director fired?

*why was a previous athletic coach fired whom before had command over some aspects of fundraising?

*what changes are being made on the board of directors? Why? What does the BOD actually do?

*whom is making decisions at the school? And whom has oversight over this person?

The first school mass is today for the class of 2018-19. This is a fabulous time of year and I hope all new and returning students have a terrific year. Carmel is a special place.

But let me offer up a suggested prayer.

Please may those in charge look out for Carmel. May they have the grace and wisdom to act in the best interests of the students, faculty and all associated with the school. That they do not fall victim to the inebriation of power, to it’s tyrannical schemes, but instead lift those around them as God would want, with humility and honor.

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As always, I encourage you feedback/comments. Hit the reply button or send me an email at jonjkerr@gmail.com.

Hope to see some of you at a football game this fall.

Best,

Jon

THE COACHING DIARIES, PART 3: GET THE JAM OUT

This spring, Jon is coaching youth lacrosse. This is the second in a series of posts about the experience.

Ringo Starr, the drummer for the Beatles, had an expression for how the band decided if they had a good song or not.

“We’ve just got to get the jam out,” he said.

Translation––we won’t know if we have a good song until we play it.

The same sentiment can be applied to this lacrosse season.

We all know what a lousy spring this has been. A non-stop barrage of rain and cold. Rubbish (ode to Ringo and our friends in the UK)! The poor weather has robbed athletes of valuable practice time and games. This spring season is a developmental one, and not just lacrosse-specific movements. There are life skills built through participating in team sports. For the time that we have the boys, we place just as much importance in that area.

At one of our rare practices (May 16), Charlie and I saw an opportunity. We thought it would be a good time to re-define the season.

“Our second half begins now,” Charlie said at the beginning of practice.

One could see the edict as a challenge thrown to the boys. Who will seize the day? Whom will take responsibility for their own performance and do their job? Urgency is the currency for any sports coach. Sometimes that urgency is slightly manufactured. Other times, its self-evident.

Marv Levy, the Hall of Fame coach of the Buffalo Bills during their Super Bowl run of the 1990’s, once famously (and humorously) said before a Super Bowl game, “This is not a must win. World War 2 was a must win.” I would say Marv did not have to create urgency around the Super Bowl. It was self-evident. But downplaying its importance, he gave permission for his players to create whatever head space they needed to draw on their own motivational tanks.

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The 12-to-14 year old brain is a tricky one. Boys are old enough to take on leadership roles but not yet of age to understand entirely what that means. Direction is needed.

At the end of the May 16 practice, we had a player captaincy vote. The vote finished in a tie between Rocco Ferretti and Jack Lucania.

On the field, Rocco (midfield) and Jack (defense) play different positions. Up to the point they were named captains, they were the most productive players at their positions for us this season. One could say the boys know this and through inductive reasoning, elevated them to a leadership role.

But I think the vote revealed more.

Rocco is a dual recognition leader––coaches and players see what he brings. He’s a good-sized kid with a personality to boot. He says what’s on his mind, connecting his heart to his head (don’t ever lose that Rocco). We can coach him hard and he has enough self-awareness where we can blow him a little crap if necessary. He gets it.

Jack was the surprise.

We see the all-out effort in practice and in games. We hear what he says on the sidelines without provocation, always being positive and uplifting with his messaging. We’ve seen the evolution of a quiet, stay-in-my-lane sixth grader to a vocal, dignified leader-in-progress seventh grader.

What we weren’t sure of was if his teammates recognized it. To our delight, they did.

Now it’s one thing to be a captain. It’s another to act like one. We’ll be having conversations with Rocco and Jack about what being a captain means. But mostly, we won’t be telling. Rather, asking questions and giving guidance when needed. That’s the best learning exercise there is and why team sports is so valuable to a young person’s personal development.

The weather may not be cooperating this spring season. But there are still plenty of ways to get the jam out.

THE COACHING DIARIES, PART 2: LOSING THE NARRATIVE

This spring, Jon is coaching youth lacrosse. This is the second in a series of posts about the experience.

I’m a big fan of the film “Stand By Me.” It was made in the mid-80’s and based on a Stephen King short story, “The Body.” The crux of the movie is about a group of adolescent boys who set out on a journey to find a rumored dead body. Along the way, they encounter obstacles (one being a rabid junk yard dog with one of the best animal names in cinema history, ‘Chopper’) and eventually outsmart the older boys taking a parallel path. It’s a coming of age plot, set in post-World War 2 rural Oregon. I thought about this story one recent afternoon on the rapidly drying fields at Townline Park.

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A few days a week, I help out with the junior, junior Jr. Scouts (1st and 2nd graders). Technically its a ‘lacrosse’ practice, and yes, the boys do wear pads, gloves and hold lacrosse sticks. But acts of juvenile savagery are often more appealing to this age group than the routine––passing and catching. You put sticks in the hands of young boys and all hell breaks loose.

I was organizing a ground ball line when I viewed a boy-on-boy decapitation attempt in the corner of my eye. This caused another kid, in retaliation, to swing his stick with the momentum of Pete Townsend smashing one of his guitars.

I was losing the narrative.

Then, a reprieve from the heavens appeared on the tops of the grass.

“It’s a dead bird!” yelled one of the boys.

They quickly formed a circle around the bird.

“You sure it’s dead?” another boy asked.

“Don’t you think it would fly if it were alive?,” another one asked, providing a most sensible observation.

I leaned in between the circle to take a closer look.

Just as I reached down to pick it up, one of the boys thrust the top of his stick into the neck of the fallen vertebrate. After two or three jabs, the head separated from the body.

If there was any life left in the bird the public guillontining certainly sucked it out.

The beheading was met with gasps and salutes.

“Oh!”

“Yeah!”

“Eww…”

Before I could scoop up the bird and place it in the garbage, hoping we could resume ‘lacrosse practice’, the decapitator had a posthumous change of heart.

“Can we bury him?” he asked.

“Umm…ahh…” I stuttered.

In my moment of ambivalence, permission was granted.

A chorus of cheers was followed by a race to the baseball field. There, the bird was dropped and covered in dirt.

I watched all of this with detached wonderment. My adultness would only get in the way. As the Beatles once said, let it be.

After a few minutes, one of the boys’ mother walked over to where the burial ceremony was taking place, picked up the bird and dumped it in the nearest garbage can. There wasn’t much resistance. They must have ran out of ideas. ‘Practice’ resumed.

By the end of the hour, we were organized; lacrosse movements were performed. The bird incident forgotten. Or so I thought.

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We always huddle with the boys at the end of each session. We go over positives for the day and things we need to keep working on.

When we were done, I felt compelled to bring closure to #Birdgate (with a small portion of my tongue planted in cheek).

“Don’t worry about the bird. He or she is now in a better place,” I said.

“But he’s in the garbage can!” yelled one of the boys.

“True. By higher place I mean spirit not body,” I said.

“I don’t know…he’s still in a garbage can,” mused the boy as he wandered off.

I guess we don’t always have the answers to all of life’s unpredictable events.

Some days it’s perfectly fine to lose the narrative.

Best,

Jon

THE COACHING DIARIES, PART 1: TOO MANY MICHAELS

This spring, Jon is coaching a 7th and 8th grade boys lacrosse team. This is the first in a series of posts about the season.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” -William Shakespeare 

For all parties involved, there are a multitude of emotions that encompass the start of a new sports season. Excitement, anticipation, nervousness, hope. And dread.

Yes, dread.

Not over the prospect of whipping into shape a group of raw, eager 7th and 8th graders. That idea inflames the good emotions, the quest for the ‘Kwan’ (as coined by Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire”…love, respect, community).

Where the dread comes in is with the names. More specially, the remembering.

At first glance at our roster I knew I was in trouble.

Here’s what we are dealing with: two Ethan’s, one Aiden, one Evan, one Eddie, one Stephen, one Shaun, one Soona, three Charlie’s (including a coach), three Michael’s (two prefer its diminutive use ‘Mikey’), a Jack, a Jeremiah, a G-Man (I’m guessing that’s a moniker) and of course, Rocco (shoehorned in a mandatory league rule that allows for a ‘Rocco’ on every sports team).

At this adolescent phase of development, many of the boys are close to equal in physical stature.The bigger kids are easier to remember. This year’s Rocco looks like a Rocco. He’s one of our taller, more stout kids and has the jawline of someone who can take a punch.

But the Ethan’s, Shaun, Evan, Charlie’s and Michael’s? A few weeks into our season, I’m still struggling. Eventually I will remember. But because this is an affliction for all youth coaches, I am proposing a few solutions in hopes of benefiting the fraternity as a whole. In this hashtag culture we live in, let’s call it #CoachNameRecall:

Nicknames (ode to G-Man)

Remember the movie “Top Gun”? Do you recall the actual name of the character played by Tom Cruise?

No. He’ll always be Maverick.

The “Goonies”? You had Mouth (smart aleck) Sloth (wordsmith), Chunk (portly and funny) and Data (future securities engineer).

My favorite…Snake (eye patch required) from “Escape from New York.”

All of these characters have actual names. Pete, Bob, Billy, Steven…but that leads us back to the problem. Nicknames prevent errors in #CoachNameRecall.

Pee-wee Herman? Not Paul, just Pee-wee.

Voice Recognition 

We are all familiar with Siri. Some of us have Alexa in our house. Experts predict voice recognition is the next technological breakthrough of our times. That time is now for youth coaches.

Say ‘ball down!’, ‘release’ or ‘I got 22!’ and the name of the player who speaks it flashes on our smart phone screen.

Let’s get some smart LFHS future engineering students on this idea ASAP.

Celebrity Association

In our celebrity-obsessed culture, why not find an application with youth sports?

A blank stare into the helmet of Ethan quickly shapes into #CoachNameRecall…I got it…once married to Uma Thurman…Ethan Hawke!

“Ethan go in for Soona on d!”

We need to make a substitution. Shaun, at attack.

OK…I got it…my mother used to play his records on vinyl when I was a child…’Do Run’ something…yes, Shaun Cassidy!

“Shaun you’re in for Aiden at attack!”

I have no association yet for G-Man. Suggestions are welcome.

Just Ask Them

Where’s the fun in that?

We’re looking forward to seeing all the boys at the game this Sunday, April 29 (2:30 p.m. at Townline Park. As always, we ask they be there one hour before game time).

If you happen to over hear me or Coach DeYoung (who’s first name is Charlie by the way) say ‘Goose’, don’t think its a temporary substitute for #CoachNameRecall or a tribute to Maverick’s best friend in “Top Gun.”

It’s an actual lacrosse term.

Best,

Coach Iceman

MORE ON MULTI-SPORTS PARTICIPATION AND CONFLICT BETWEEN COACHES

This article was first posted on ScoutsFootball.com 

Last week, I sent out the first article in the final section of our ‘State 2022′ series titled “It All Matters”. I wanted to break it up as the first piece addresses reader comments congruent with the argument of the series: how can the Lake Forest football program get to and win a state championship by the year 2022?

In this article, I want to address, with a bit more focused intent, the topic raised in Part 2 of the series: multi-sport participation.

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With the amount of objective data available for anyone to research, it’s hard to mount a defense against a high school athlete playing more than one sport. There are always exceptions (Scouts sophomore Rylie Mills being one. He’s too busy being a football recruit to do anything else). I firmly believe every young man in the Scouts football program right now should be playing another sport in the winter and/or spring. We know this is not the case for a variety of reasons (I covered this at length in Part 2 of this series).

We are now technically in the spring sports season. I say technically because the actual climate the first month of the season defies meteorological forecasts (anyone have trouble opening their ice-infected mailbox? In the words of Charlie Brown…’Rats!’)

One advantage of spring sports season is the largess of opportunities.

LFHS offers six sports for boys (six for girls). They are:

Baseball

Lacrosse

Track and Field

Tennis

Volleyball

Water Polo

I wanted to find out what the coaches of these sports felt about multi-sport participation and their relationship with the football program.

So I called up two spring sports coaches where there is the most crossover and asked them.

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If you happen to have a Twitter account, and create a Scouts content feed, @LFHStrack is a must follow. The person who runs the feed is the boys head coach, John Brumund-Smith.

Not only does he tweet out updates about his team, but there are often tips on training and nutrition, applicable to all sports and all ages.

John’s approach to social media has dual purposes––disseminating information and enlistment.

“I get accused on Twitter of begging for athletes,” he said. “If people want to see it that way, whatever. It means somebody is listening.”

Before the 2018 spring season, John launched a Twitter campaign specifically designed to recruit football players.

He would create a graphic with the image of a former LFHS football player who also did track. He then added a quote from the former player extolling the virtues of track and how it helped him become a better football player.

Austin McIlvaine, Scottie Powell, Conner Hayes, Jonathan DiValerio, Quinn Julian, Virgil Young, Liam Pooler are all examples of athletes of football/track athletes John has coached (there are more). Three of the athletes mentioned hold LFHS track records.

Consider this––six sprinters qualified for the Class 3A state meet last spring. Not one of them ran track as a freshman.

“Scottie Powell played lacrosse the first three years and came out for track (2013) and went on to set the 4×100 relay school record at the time,” John said.

There are a couple of points to be made here as it pertains to football.

The movements needed for an athlete to run a 100 or 200 meter sprint mimic that of football-related movements (short distance bursts, north/south, downhill). This fact allows for newbies to attain rapid success, which let’s be honest, is appealing to today’s teenager (who wants to spend months training to wrestle and lose half the time?) It’s also vitally important to point out the relationship John has cultivated with the football coaches.

A hugely important statement from him:

“I let the football players do the football lifts at track practice. I would 100 percent prefer they do our lifting instead, but compromises must be made.”

John is very invested in the track and field program. Fast beats strong every time in track and he designs specific training workouts for his athletes, based on the event an athlete runs (a 2-miler does not do the same workout as a short distance hurdler).

“We spend (thousands) of dollars the last few years on equipment with the weight lifting program and hundreds of hours researching it. We take lifting very seriously, it is a supplement in track and field,” John said.

Here’s what John tells his athletes who play football: do the football lifting. But during track season, come to our practices. Invest in the team you are currently with. A more than reasonable sentiment.

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There’s a joint operating agreement between the programs.

The vertical pad at West Campus? That’s open to track athletes. My guess is its open to all athletes at LFHS but it has more applicable use in track. John has his athletes test their vertical a couple times a year.

“Rather than paying $500 or so for one I ask, ‘can I borrow this?'” John said.

When football has max lift days in the off season (usually in February and May), John excuses them from track. “We make that concession,” he said.

You might think…what’s the big deal? One practice day concession over a long season? Well, this year, the track state championships are May 25 and 26. Football has a max lift scheduled for May 22 and 24. For any crossover athletes that happen to qualify for the state meet, that would mean potentially either missing a valuable practice day the week of the state meet or having to get to a track workout after having maxed out in squat/hang clean/bench.

It may seem like a small thing but it’s not.

What distinguishes John as a coach is his professional, enlightened and most of all, humanitarian approach to current events. Rather than say, ‘you stay on your lawn, I’ll stay on mine’, John has found middle ground as it pertains to his relationship with the football program.

“I’ve watched a 1,000 football games in my life and I can’t pretend to know anything about x’s and o’s. I’m not a football coach,” he said. “But I do know if you can’t catch the guy, you can’t tackle him. Speed is a huge component to football. Luck follows speed.”

By my count (email me if I’m missing someone), here are the football/track cross over athletes this spring (all classes represented):

Jack Brush

Ryan Cekay

Rafael Riva

Ryan Marquis

Dominick Keating

James Swartout

William Bazell

Wyatt Horvat

Nick Guevera

Finn Casey

By this count, there are 10 total crossover athletes from grades 9-12.

10? That’s it?

Of that group, two are from the ’19 class, zero from ’20.

That means of next season’s presumed varsity football team, just two are competing in track this spring.

Huh? Shouldn’t there be more?

Coach Brumund-Smith offers up one more difficult-to-counter argument for taking up another sport:

“If you make the second round in football, you’ve had 11 competitions. With track, you have another 15 competitions,” he said. “It’s different if you are competing for something rather than not competing for something.”

Isn’t competition something we want to be infusing into our kids every chance we get? Isn’t understanding the sharp distinction between winning and losing one measurement for success as an adult?

That can only happen in a sporting arena (I use ‘arena’ euphemistically) of competition.

Walt Disney once said, “I’ve been up against tough competition my whole life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.”

Outside of football, why are so many of our kids getting along without it?

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This is the second spring I’ve coached in the junior lacrosse program in LF/LB.

From last season to next, there has been an explosion in numbers. Especially at the elementary grade level, where anecdotally, there appears to be close-to-if-not-over a hundred kids playing the sport this spring, many for the first time.

At the high school level, lacrosse plays its first IHSA-sanctioned season in 2018.

Here are the lacrosse/football crossover athletes (all grades/levels…email me if I’m missing someone):

Jack Mislinski

Jack VanHyfte

Chris Cavalaris

Matt Barigazzi

Matt Garrigan

Robert Winebrenner

Andrew St. Amand

Griffin Slobodnik

William Schlactenhaufen

Charlie Altounian

Matt Nicholson

Mac Uihlein

Coel Morcott

Richie Hoskins

James Gildersleeve

John Halloran

Harry Hodgkins

John Straus

Matt Slobodnik

I’m assuming the underclassmen on the list (11) will come back out for football this summer. By my count, that’s 19 total crossovers. Almost double the 10 for track.

It’s reasonable to say that lacrosse has exceeded all other spring sports in popularity and is objectively the most popular ‘second’ sport for Scouts football players. And that’s awesome. More participation, more competition = upside.

The rise of the sport in LF/LB is due to a number of economical and sociological factors. I’m not going to do a deep dive on those components in this article. I do want to share the dynamic between the lacrosse and football programs.

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I called up LFHS head coach Marc Thiergart. He’s been the varsity coach since 2015.

Marc is a fan of lacrosse players participating in other sports.

“Basketball players, its great for defense. Football, the off-season lifting. Hockey, they have to dig into the corners and it develops the toughness and discipline you need to pick up grounds balls,” he said.

He mentioned how one of his sons got burned out playing one sport. He said he encourages athletes to focus on that sport while it is in season. “We leave them alone when they are playing another sport. They need to be away from it,” he said.

Very sensible. There’s an argument to be made for the physical and mental benefit of an athlete focusing on one sport each season.

I asked Marc about that concept as it relates to football. Unlike track and field, the varsity lacrosse team does not have a lifting program. With a limited window to play the season (which is basically 6-7 weeks) Marc said simply there isn’t enough time to activate a lifting program.

“It’s such a short season and so demanding,” he said. “Lacrosse is a skills sport, not a strength sport. We don’t need to lift in season. I don’t think it’s necessary.”

As counted earlier, there are 19 football players in the lacrosse program. I’m going to take out the four seniors (Mislinski/Cavalaris/VanHyfte/Barigazzi) as they are no longer current. That leaves 15. As current rostered Scouts football players, they are required to participate in the team’s off-season lifting program.

In April and May, the football team lifts on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4-5:30. Obviously, this conflicts with players participating in a spring sport. The program has a Sunday lift from 12-2 pm for spring sport athletes or anyone else who wants to get in an extra workout. And there are morning lifts from 8-8:45 on late start days.

Thiergart is not a fan of in season lifts for his lacrosse players.

“I don’t want our kids in football on Sundays,” he said.

Part of his reasoning is stated earlier. On a macro level, he believes teenagers have a max mental and physical capacity. They need less commitments, not more.

But there’s another, more territorial, reason for his dislike of his players participating in football lifts during the lacrosse season.

“Last year we had kids that were hurt,” he said. “They were doing squat stuff on game day.”

Fact checking the 2017 lacrosse schedule turns up several night games. It’s likely he’s referring to an athlete who went to football lifts in the morning or afternoon then played a lacrosse game at night.

He mentioned a current senior who missed two weeks of the lacrosse season in 2017 for what Thiergart said was due to an injury suffered during a football lift. He also referred to spring football Max Lift days as a problem as athletes are not prepared to practice lacrosse on those days.

Thiergart said he has reached out to Coach Spagnoli about excusing in season kids from football lifting but hasn’t gotten a response.

“I’m fairly new. I’m outside the building (Thiergart owns a private company),” he said. “Now I’ve gotten to know everybody and getting a better understanding of the process.”

There are two distinct issues at play here, yet they both intersect. One goes back to what I wrote earlier regarding coaches’ DNA. Philosophically, Thiegart believes young athletes should nourish the grass they are walking on that day. If you are a lacrosse player, you should focus all of your mind, body and sprit on lacrosse for the two months the season is played. That belief system will not change.

Second, on a more micro level, he’s protective of his team. Like any coach, he wants to win. And your chances of winning are greater when you have fully engaged players. If they are involved in another sport in any capacity, that diminishes the focused attention they can give to their sport (and other areas of their life).

I asked Coach Spagnoli about Thiergart’s comments.

“I’m sorry he feels that way,” Spagnoli said. He had no other comment except to say that he has ever received any communication from Thiergart regarding weight lifting.

###

Let’s circle back to the argument for the series. How can the Scouts football program get to an win a state title by 2022?

As it pertains to lacrosse, no one would argue against the upside of participation. The football coaches do insist multi-sport kids lift while in season, and do provide alternate days/times for kids so they are not missing practices/games while in participating in that other sport. The enrollment numbers show lacrosse is exploding in popularity in LF/LB. Don’t be surprised if the number of football players crossing over into lacrosse increases in the coming years. I believe that data point is a positive for the football program moving forward.

But the lack of communication between coaches in both programs is a problem.

As more athletes participate in both programs, more infrastructure is needed. More conflicts will arise. Even if never verbalized by those in charge, more kids may be put in positions where they feel like they have to choose one sport over the and by doing so, are being disloyal.

This may prevent some of our best athletes from sticking with football for four years or from playing the sport at all.

I’m not saying Coach Spagnoli and Coach Thiergart need to literally sit around a campfire and break bread. There are plenty of coaches at all levels of athletics who work for one institution but have diverse belief systems (same in business. Do any of you reading this have disagreements with colleagues? Of course you do. That’s life). But in light of current and projected future circumstances, a conversation (or series of conversations) is necessary. If the coaches won’t take initiative, the athletic administration at LFHS needs to force them to communicate.

Remember this quote from a rival coach from Part 2 of the series:

“Unfortunately, conflicts exist in many schools over sharing athletes, which, to me, is all due to the egos of the coaches. If a coach truly cares about his/her athlete, then that coach will support his/her athlete in all athletic endeavors. All the adults need to remember that it’s not about us, rather, it’s about the kid and what he/she wants.”

To be clear––I’m not saying Coach Spagnoli or Coach Thiergart don’t care about their athletes. I can speak more definitively about Spagnoli…he is a ‘kid’ guy through and through. My conversations with Thiergart and his players have always positively reflected on the lacrosse program. It’s a terrific sport, one that I personally love coaching at the youth level along with football.

But the situation outlined in this article is a circumstance where the ego of grown men is preventing reasonable action. Leadership is needed.

Where will it come from?

###

That wraps up the series. We’ve covered a lot territory in these articles, with more to be written about (which I will continue to do).

In conclusion, the program is on solid footing. Coaching, facilities, support, overall infrastructure is as good as any in the state.

Can the program get to and win a state title by 2022? I believe so. The ideas outlined in this series I believe will help inch the program closer. Thanks to all who contributed.

Author Ryan Holiday wrote a book titled “The Obstacle is the Way.” That’s appropriate for the Lake Forest Scouts football program moving forward. Obstacles exist. Can they not only be overcome but become the path through which the Scouts achieve the milestone of a state championship? That will take a lot of hard work by a lot of people. Time will tell.

Mostly, it will be about our kids. They are our best asset.

Can’t wait for June to get here.

Best,

Jon

ANSWERS TO READER QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF FOOTBALL

This article was first posted on ScoutsFootball.com 

I’m a huge fan of music history. Mostly of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s when in my opinion, those decades gave birth to the rock n’ roll that will outlast our generation and others to follow (Beatles…Rolling Stones…Led Zeppelin…Springsteen…Guns N’ Roses…need I go on?)

I recently read a bio of the legendary California rock band Van Halen and it brought me to this conclusion: Van Halen became Van Halen when all the pieces came together. Musicians, stage production, sound engineering, management…they were a band that hit the country like a lightning bolt in 1978. But they were actually an overnight success years in the making.

If/when the Scouts play for and win a state football championship, many components over the course of a five- month season will have to align. And there will be some luck involved as well. Any success at the elite level in any organization is the result of agronomics––cultivation and execution of culture. In the LF/LB community, the farmers are plentiful, the soil flush, the crops prosperous. Yet in spite of this bountiful environment, there are bugs.

That’s because it all matters.

I will state the argument for this series one more time––if the program wants to stay the course, there is no reason for ideas on change, no reason to write these articles. Six regular season wins, 1-2 playoff victories; the Scouts have proven time and time again they can reach such milestones without impunity. Most programs in the state are envious of such consistent achievements. But there is a stated desire for more, to be one of best programs in the state of Illinois. To do so, to be spoken of in the same breath as Lake Zurich, Stevenson, Libertyville (all conference rivals and state title competitors/winners over the last four seasons) Lake Forest must get to and win a state championship. That is the lens through which I am writing this series.

In this first of two final articles in our three-part series on how the Scouts football program can compete for and win a state title by 2022, I’m combining ideas from the first two articles and adding responses to submitted comments from subscribers. There is no magic bullet (pardon the pun) or secret sauce (ode to the Big Mac) revealed. The program needs consistent, intentional activity in a few areas, but areas that contain many dirty details. And it’s all in the details. As stated in the previous articles, some of these details are controllable, some are not. But I think the program could do a better job recognizing the controllables, changing viewpoints and taking action.

If you haven’t read the previous articles, here are links to both:

Building our Youth Program: http://scoutsfootball.com/scouts-state-2022-part-1…

Multi-Sport Participation: http://scoutsfootball.com/scouts-state-2022-part-2…

###

Let’s begin with responses to a few feedback emails I received when I announced the series. These are from subscribers with sons in the program current or previous.

I’ll give my reply following the comment.

This is from Mark Funk:

Making Better Use of the Athletes on the Team

Spagnoli needs to throw out his policy of not playing anybody consistently on both sides of the ball. This has driven me crazy for the last 10 years. I think we are the only top level team in 6A, 7A or 8A school that does not play its top athletes both ways. Prairie Ridge last year for example had a number of two way players including Samson Evans and Jeff Jenkins, Nazareth also did, and I know the big schools like Maine South also do. This kills us against the competition, particularly on the line and defensive secondary. We don’t have the luxury of being a large sized school that has more big athletes than they know what to do with. Therefore we run out of players to put on the OL (that often don’t even weigh 200 lbs) and run out of players to put in the secondary (where we have 5’6″ 150 lb guys trying to defend 6’3″ 210 lb receivers).

Response: Mark is right about what other top level programs do. Each state championship team in 2017 featured multiple two way players (Lake Zurich had four or five that played snaps on both sides in the state title game last November). Two seasons ago, after surviving a 42-40 first round game to West Aurora, Maine South coach Dave Inserra decided he needed better defensive execution and moved a few offensive players to defense. They went on to win the state championship. ‘Two-platooning’ is a necessity at the lower levels (1A-4A), common at the mid-levels (5A and 6A) and not unusual at the upper levels (7A and 8A).

Let’s look at the record of what Lake Forest has done the past two seasons regarding two-way players (position with the most reps first. Only including guys who saw significant playing time):

2016

Liam Pooler (RB/DB)

Gabe Funk (LB/FB)

Bryan Ooms (LB/RB)

Spencer Yauch (DL/OL)

Andrew Athenson (DB/RB)

Augy Cirame (OL/DL)

Brendan Eckland (DL/OL)

2017

John Deering (LB/FB)

Jack VanHyfte (RB/WR/DB)

Bryan Ooms (LB/RB)

Spencer Yauch (DL/OL)

There is a chance I am missing some players and if so, please email me (hit reply button or jon@scoutsfootball.com)

But this list includes 11 over two seasons.

So while its not entirely true that Coach Spagnoli and the staff do not two-platoon, it is definitely something they are philosophically opposed to.

I’ve asked him many times about this subject. His answer is always a version of this:

“We want our players to be fresh and prepared in late game situations. We believe if they are seeing reps on both sides of the ball, they will not be at their best late in games.”

OK. You can disagree with that statement. But his feelings on two-way players is not a surface issue, its one of DNA. What I mean is that experienced coaches have deeply ingrained philosophical convictions on how to run a program. It’s the sports equivalent of a political party platform (Democrats believe in big government, Republicans are more pro-business…you get what I mean). These long held beliefs are about as easy to change as a flat tire on the top of Mt. Everest.

They may bend a bit, but when push comes to shove, coaches will fall back on what they believe to be true based on years of evidence they have gathered. I can envision Coach Spagnoli continuing to bend in specific situations, but philosophically, he is not a two-way guy.

The questions remains (thanks to Mark for bringing it up): is this belief one that that will contribute towards preventing the Scouts from winning a state title by 2022? I believe it could. We can point to situations in previous seasons before 2016 when certain players could have thrived at other positions (Owen Williams at LB? Jack Traynor at FB?) Of course we’ll never know but it makes for fun late night conversation at Chief’s.

My only reason for not being all in with the two-way argument is due to contrarian evidence referenced in this post. But I do believe this: if the Scouts do get to and/or win a state championship by 2022, it will be with not a few but several players competing on both sides of the ball. If so, that means the coaching staff will have changed how they view the construction of a team. Can it happen? Sure. Coaching principles are not doctrines carved into stone tablets. The best coaches evolve based on current circumstances. I trust Coach Spagnoli, while possessing a rational, reasoned ideology based on 30-plus years of coaching, is open to change.

###

Also from Mark Funk:

We Must Play in a Conference Our Size

My oldest son was on the team that last won the conference championship in football, but I’m not sure that will ever happen again. We need to relocate to a conference with schools that are roughly the same size, and there are plenty around. I also know that there have been and will be a lot more conference realignments so maybe it will take care of itself. The problem with the current situation is that, depending on the non-conference schedule, we may get in at best with a 6-3 record, and more likely a 5-4 record. This means we open up against a 1 or 2 seed in the playoffs which is not good (unless we get really lucky and draw Riverside Brookfield). In many years, we may be among the best 6A teams in the state but may not make the playoffs because we lost to a number of 8A and 7A schools.

Response: I’ll start with a little recent history.

In August 2014, the seven-member Prairie Division of the North Suburban Conference announced they were bolting the NSC to form their own conference (now the Northern Lake County Conference). Over several months during the 2014-15 school year, many meetings were held between members of the remaining NSC schools as well as Central Suburban and Mid-Suburban League officials. During those meetings, a litany of possibilities were discussed. One circumstance talked about was Lake Forest joining the CSL. I’m comfortable saying with authority that Lake Forest could have joined the CSL during this window of time. They obviously did not.

If they had, they would have most likely landed in the CSL North Division. Here are the schools the Scouts would have played each season:

Highland Park

Deerfield

Maine West

Maine East

Glenbrook North

They would also play two CSL South teams each season:

Maine South

New Trier

Evanston

Glenbrook South

Niles West

Niles North

When comparing the CSL North schedule to the meat grinder NSC, quite frankly, there is no comparison. Each season, Lake Forest could win every CSL North game (we know that probably wouldn’t happen but still it’s more favorable than Stevenson, Warren, Lake Zurich, etc). How cool would those cross over games be? Imagine New Trier coming to Varsity Field? Or Maine South? Of course, within the CSL North, the regionalization of the schedule would be great for players and fans. Let’s be honest, our kids would get more jacked up for games vs. Deerfield and Highland Park than Zion and Mundelein.

Mark’s point about how the Scouts would benefit from a less 8A/7A-heavy schedule is a strong one. With the way the current playoff format is constructed in Illinois, a 8-1 or 7-2 record is better than 6-3 or 5-4. A path to a state championship is less rocky as a 1-4 seed vs. 10-13. Fact: Over the past 10 seasons, no team has made the 6A title game with a seed lower than six (Crete-Monee made the title game as a six seed in 2015).

But like the discontinued line of Planters Cheese Balls (a food group of mine while in college) the Lake Forest-to-CSL idea never gained enough traction from enough interested parties. With the current leadership in place at LFHS, don’t expect any new talks to occur. Just like the ‘if only David Lee Roth had stayed in Van Halen’ conversation (I’m a devoted Roth guy) the topic is relegated to bar room fodder.

###

One more subscriber comment deserving of mention from Joe Mislinski:

I base my recommendation on the assumption that LFHS is going to play four class 7A and 8A teams each year.

I know the coaches won’t like this, but the way beat schools that have bigger, stronger, faster athletes (due only to the fact that they have a larger population from which to draw) is to play a more disciplined type of offensive game, and one that reduces the impact of size and speed and acts as an equalizer. It’s the triple option.

Look at what Army has done this year. 8-2 consistently playing teams that outweigh them 25-75 pounds on the line; they play against D1 opponents with aspirations to play in the NFL. What you need, though, are coaches who understand this offense, and they aren’t many out there. The passing game is much more ‘exciting’ but the option game is MADE for very smart (LFHS) and disciplined (LFHS football) players. And by playing the option, you don’t need your biggest guys on offense to catch passes (i.e. Cekay); you can use them as DBs (which would have helped against Hoffman Estates) and also as blocking wideouts who shock people when they catch passes. And by running this offense, the defense will naturally be ready for Prairie Ridge.

See this article: http://www.goarmywestpoint.com/news/2017/11/5/football-feinsteins-findings-flawless-performance.aspx against another option team that had Army’s number historically.

Response: We all know Joe is an Army guy (West Point graduate and still very involved with the school as an alum). So he brings this analysis with a bit of a subjective bent towards the Black Knights. When looking at what he said, it’s important to filter out the knee jerk, ‘oh, that boring option offense. No kid will want to play that.’ When looking at Joe’s comment through the lens of the current climate, there is an argument to be made.

Our kids are always outsized in games against Stevenson/Warren/Lake Zurich/Libertyville. Beating those teams (or at least two in one season) are vitally essential to any state championship run. There is a personnel/schematic point to me be made to switching to an ‘option’ based run system. Opposing defenses don’t see this type of system. It would simplify blocking schemes on the offensive line, help neutralize the size differential vs 8A/7A NSC teams. QB’s would have fewer pre-snap and post-snap decisions to make. And in preparing us for that inevitable playoff showdown vs. Prairie Ridge and/or Cary-Grove…

As a youth coach in the LF/LB feeder programs, one system, taught from 5th grade through each level, would be an enormous advantage.

But much like a Talking Heads reunion tour, it won’t happen (at least with the current coaching staff).

###

Before we close out this article, one other comment I wanted to publish from Rick Schneider:

If the goal is State Finals by 2022, then develop a business plan. Determine what LFHS stands for. Develop your mission and strategy. Make tough decisions, if necessary, based on the aforementioned and not on protecting personnel. “Get the right people on the bus.”

Well said by Rick. We all agree the program has done a nice job with such directives over the past decade. But that next step––competing and winning a state title––requires another level of leadership. I believe our football community has the pieces in place to take that next step.

###

That’s a wrap on this article. I’ll publish one more article in this series (more of a sequel to this part) in the next couple of days including a few conclusions I have from researching/reporting series.

As always, send replies/comments to jon@scoutsfootball.com. Your thoughts/feedback always welcome.

Best,

Jon

MULTI-SPORTS PARTICIPATION: WHAT EVERY ATHLETE AND PARENT SHOULD KNOW

This article was first posted on ScoutsFootball.com 

Bo Jackson recently turned 55. Aside from that milestone being another startling smack-in-the-face reality check about my own mortality (Jackson was, for a time, in the late 80’s and 90’s, as popular nationally as Michael Jordan. Anyone over the age of 40 remembers the “Bo Knows…” Nike campaigns).

Fast forward to 2017.

Jackson’s comments earlier this year are newsworthy.

Jackson was asked by a reporter if knowing what he knew now about the risks of playing tackle football, would he put on the pads again?

“If I knew back then what I knew now, I would have never played football,” Jackson told USA Today. “There’s no way I’d ever allow my kids to play. I’d smack them in the mouth if they said they wanted to play football. I’d tell them, ‘play basketball, baseball, soccer, golf. Just anything but football.”

I respect Jackson’s thoughts about his kids (although he was baited a bit into jumping on the “anti-football” legacy media campaign). He can choose to raise them anyway he wants. His feelings are more personal as his athletic career effectively ended after a hip injury on a routine tackle in an NFL playoff game in 1991. He played MLB through 1994 but was never the same player.

My point in leading with the Jackson anecdote is not to debate his quote about the merits of football. It’s what he said after:

“play basketball, baseball, soccer, golf”

Bo knows the merits of multi-sport participation.

###

Since I announced I was doing this series, I’ve gotten quite a few emails with input on what I should write about (that’s great…keep sending them).

One topic included in almost 100 percent of emails is multi-sport participation. When I run into dad’s around town, and the conversation lasts beyond one minute small talk, the topic of multi-sport participation invariably comes up.

There is a belief among those that sent notes (and those I speak with off the cuff) that multi-sport participation is not part of the current Scouts football culture.

Said one subscriber who recently had a Scouts football-playing son graduate: 

“I can guarantee you that at the other top 6A schools, all of the top athletes at the school are playing football. That’s not always the case at LFHS. Every year there are are a number of great athletes that simply do not play football even though they would provide a huge contribution to the team. Many elect to play basketball, baseball, lacrosse, etc. instead of football. At those other schools, these kids are most definitely playing football in addition to those other sports.”

Another subscriber with a son currently in the program:

“(We should) encourage all of our best athletes to compete in all the sports they can. Create a culture of ‘be the best athlete you can be’ at all the sports you can play.”

Another subscriber with a son currently in the program:

“Why are not more of our kids playing other sports? I don’t get it.”

There’s a couple of ways to look at this issue. Let’s start with the first quote.

“There are a number of great athletes who simply are not playing football”

This is difficult to parse through as there are so many subjective data points to evaluate:

How do you define ‘great’ athlete? Were these ‘great’ athletes exposed to football at a young age and stopped playing for some reason? Are they stars in another sport and the commitment level simply leaves no time for football? Are they concerned about head injuries?

We can go on and on. Without doing significant market surveying, there is no way to offer any real empirical data that would give us true neutral answers.

I’ve had parents site specific examples of situations where they said someone chose not to play football. I’m hesitant to use specific names for obvious reasons.

Again, the the merits of this argument, although valid, are difficult to prove without specific testimony.

###

The other way to look at the issue is through the lens of the last quote from earlier in this article:

“Why are not more of our kids playing other sports. I don’t get it”

This to me is more definable. There is data/science that backs the argument that multi-sport participation is healthy for our youth.

And there is data that shows our Scouts football players are not participating in other sports at a level that maybe they should be.

###

In 2016, the National High School Federation commissioned a study on multi-sport participation. The study was conducted in Wisconsin and used a mixture of geographic areas (rural/suburban/urban) and enrollment sizes (less than 500-over 1,000) as data points.

The result of the study found that athletes who specialize were almost twice as likely to report an injury as ones who participate in more than one sport. It found that for males, the top specialization sports were soccer, basketball and tennis. For females, it was soccer, softball and volleyball.

A recent study by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association show a decline in team sports participation by boys from 50% in 2011 to 39% in 2016 (36 to 31 percent by girls over same period).

A simple Google search on the topic will call up dozens and dozens if studies and experts all bemoaning specialization (favored by those with financial stakes in one sport athletes) and backing the argument in favor of the merits of multi-sports participation.

So can we all agree that playing more than one sport is good for a high school’s athlete’s physical and mental health? OK.

Let’s do a deeper dive into what Scouts football players and those from our biggest rivals are doing.

###

In the 2017 Scouts football program, here is the breakdown of players per graduating class (I’m eliminating current seniors from analysis):

2019 33

2020 23

2021 36

I took a look at winter rosters. I wanted to see how many fall football players in all three classes were participating in a winter sport (four options):

Hockey 5 participants

Basketball 9 participants

Wrestling 9 partcipants

Swimming 0 participants

Out of 92 total ’19-’21 grads, 23 are currently playing another sport. That’s 25 percent.

Before we draw any conclusions, a few addendum footnotes:

*with the exception of wrestling and swimming, all sports are cut sports. If you aren’t good enough, you’re out.

*there are only four sports. By comparison, in the spring, there are six sport options.

I don’t know how many of the 69 football players not currently playing a sport tried out for one of the cut sports and didn’t make it. I do know many players plan to try out for a sport in the spring.

But I will relay a recent conversation I had with a current junior football player (a starter for much of the season) who I ran into around town recently. I asked him what he was doing this winter.

“I’m lifting. And playing intramural basketball.”

OK. Weight lifting checks off one off season box. And I know intramurals (at Lake Forest and other schools) have become very popular. I think we can all agree intramurals are fun and an enjoyable experience for young people.There is a social integration component that should not be ignored.

But it’s worth asking…does having athletes playing intramurals help the football program get closer to winning a state championship? That’s what we’re talking about here, right?

Why are more kids not participating in wrestling? Or hockey? Do they plan to play a sport in the spring? If not, and the reason is, ‘I want to focus on football’, why is this, especially when there is overwhelming evidence that says specialization is not the healthiest road to take?

###

On the night of Dec. 7, I visited Libertyville High School to report on an article for the Tribune on their annual Chicagoland Football Recruiting Night. For Midwestern Division 2, 3 and NAIA schools, the event is the college football equivalent of a job fair

“We love it as we get to meet prospects in a casual setting,” said one area college coach who had a booth set up in the main gym.

The host of the event was Libertyville head football coach Mike Jones. I’ve known Mike for a long time and I asked him about multi-sport participation at his school.

He had on his computer data of current kids in the program (’19-’21 grads) playing winter sports:

2019

*39 total in program

*4 playing winter sport

2020

*32 total in program

*14 playing winter sport

2021

*50 freshman

*24 playing winter sport

I asked him about the low percentage (10 percent) of juniors on a winter sport roster.

“It gets harder to make squads as you get older and there’s less (sports) in the winter,” Jones said.

“Is it something you encourage?” I asked, referring to multi-sport participation.

“We don’t really get involved in that too much,” Jones said. “If kids want to play another sport, that’s fine. We support what they want to do. We certainly don’t discourage it.”

What Jones said next was very interesting. He talked about the importance of year round weight lifting and how kids, if they play another sport, must keep up with their strength and conditioning. This is an area where he sees conflict at times, where a multi-sport kid will show up in June for football strength and conditioning testing and be well behind his teammates.

In end of year meetings, he encourages multi-sport kids to ask their other sport coaches about weight training in that sport. Do they lift regularly? What is the program? If the sport does lift during the season, that is acceptable to Jones. He’d like his kids to be at the football sanctioned lifts and he schedules morning lifts so multi-sport kids can attend and not miss practice time after school. I got a sense from Jones that he and his staff try and accommodate multi-sport athletes as much as possible. But do athletes at Libertyville feel that way? Why are only four of 39 juniors playing a winter sport? Why are not more wrestling, especially at a school like Libertyville that historically has one of the best wresting programs in the conference? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that Libertyville did make the state title game in 2015 but since then has gone 10-8 with zero playoff wins.

(Much like Lake Forest, Libertyville out sources their weight lifting program to a strength coach who is not a full time teacher or member of the coaching staff. He is out of the building but runs sessions in the school weight room. Larry Lilja, the Scouts strength coach, is on the coaching staff, designs the strength and conditioning program and supervises sessions at West Campus).

###

I reached out to the other rival coaches in our conference on this topic. Here are the responses I received:

LAKE ZURICH

28 current juniors

18 play a sport in the winter or spring

STEVENSON

36 current juniors

23 play a sport in the winter or spring

WARREN

28 total juniors

10 currently playing a winter sport

COMMENTS FROM EACH COACH

Bryan McNulty (Warren):

“The benefits of playing multi sports are learning how to compete in an environment that may be different than something you are used to. For instance, you may be the best player on the football field, but simply a role player on the basketball court.

“We have a very high participation fee per sport ($225) so I do not discourage it or encourage it because of that. My only stance is that kids need to continue lifting during their non-football season and that they perform that sport of choice at their best regardless of circumstance.

“We lift in the mornings. When our kids have games we greatly modify their lift. We do not ask them to do anything we wouldn’t do with them in football. For instance, we lift on game day as a football program.”

Josh Hjorth (Stevenson):

“We highly encourage our players to participate in all sports. We have an athletic culture at Stevenson and we want to see our student-athletes playing as many sport as they can.

“We don’t have a morning lift. We do speed training two times a week for student-athletes not in season with another sport. There are no conflicts. We want them to go out an win as a Patriot, no matter the sport.”

Luke Mertens (Lake Zurich):

“The best athletes play multiple sports and the science is proving the benefits (or reduced risk of injury due to overuse) of playing multiple sports. I remind my players this is their only chance to be a high school athlete, so be sure to play what makes you most happy, not your AAU coach or in some cases, your parents.

“Overall, I am discouraged by the trend to specialize in a sport. Rather than spend money on a personal trainer, invest in an academic tutor do your can post on Twitter some day, ‘I am blessed to announce that I was admitted to Harvard’ rather than ‘I am blessed to announce I will be continuing my athletic career at Carthage’.

This quote from Mertens is really interesting:

“Unfortunately, conflicts exist and many schools over sharing athletes, which, to me, is all due to the egos of the coaches. If a coach truly cares about his/her athlete, then that coach will support his/her athlete in all athletic endeavors. All the adults need to remember that it’s not about us, rather, it’s about the kid and what he/she wants.”

###

From an enrollment standpoint, these schools aren’t exactly apples to apples with Lake Forest. But the meta data is similar––two programs, Lake Zurich and Warren––have less juniors currently in their program (28) than the Scouts (33). Now will those programs add players because of the existing culture? That I don’t know.

The facts are the facts. Three of our rival programs––Lake Zurich, Stevenson and Libertyville––have been in the state title game for their respective classes in combined four of the last five seasons. Vernon Hills made the Class 5A title game in 2016 (they had a bunch of multi-sport players on that team). Lake County has had a representative in a football state title game for five straight seasons.

The North Suburban Conference, as presently constructed, is here to stay. If Lake Forest is to make it to a state title game by 2022, it has to more consistently beat Lake Zurich, Stevenson, Warren and Libertyville.

Since 2013, the Scouts are 5-15 vs the big four.

Looking at how these programs view the issue of multi-sport participation does not give a complete picture as to Lake Forest’s recent struggles against its rivals. It’s a complex topic, one where I hope this series can provide some insights. What I hope is that the data informs future decision making.

As Stevenson Coach Josh Hjorth said, are we encouraging an “athletic culture” within the LFHS football program?

###

Many of you know Sean Trkla. He’s known mostly as a basketball player, but he came out for football this past season, his senior year. He got injured early and did not play.

I asked Sean recently why he decided to come out after not playing as a junior or sophomore:

“John Deering and Bryan Ooms are two of my closest friends. They kind of convinced me to come out. Although I didn’t play, it enjoyed my time in football. The guys were there for me.”

I asked him about perception of the football program amongst other athletes in school.

“I had two concussions playing football in middle school. I was scared all summer leading up to the season that I was going to get hurt and I did. It was pretty bizarre. People know how much of a time commitment it is, what they are getting into. People get hurt and it can be a really scary thing.

“I know guys that are maybe not the best athletes but are good ones and would be good football players. But football is the most time consuming and you are most at risk of injury. There are other sports where you won’t get hurt and other options to show your athleticism.”

I asked him if among your peers, would more outreach, more ‘selling’ of the merits of the sport make a difference in kids wanting to try out?

“Hypothetically, yes they could. I think they think, ‘you know what (our sport) is about. You know what the commitment level is.’ They are not beggars. They run a tight ship and they have results. They could do more but you might get more flaky kids to come out. I think the guys who play football and basketball want to be there more than anyone else. Athleticism is only half of it. Your heart has to be into it.”

Now this is one opinion. A small sample size. But most of us know Sean to be a pretty popular kid, well liked amongst his peers. He’s credible. Two points that jump out:

1. Perception that football is high risk for injury. As I wrote about in the previous article, the concussion issue is a real one. Injuries? That’s been a concern since the days of the flying wedge. But these are more football problems, not necessarily Lake Forest football problems. The Scouts rarely have non-concussion injuries that require players to miss time. They are as well- conditioned to prevent injuries as any in the state.

2. They are not beggars. This begs (pun intended) multiple questions…how much do the football coaches promote the sport within the building? Do they think internal promotion will make a difference in getting more kids to come out for the sport? Or do they believe it is beneath them to have to promote the sport?

Back to the first obtuse argument in this article, that not enough of our best athletes play football.

OK, then, would more athletes in the school play football with more promotion of the sport’s merits/benefits? If negative perceptions are widely held, should there be active messaging that pushes back against such perceptions?

###

Tuesday morning (Dec. 19) I met with Coach Spagnoli in his West Campus office. I asked him the questions posed in this article. Here is transcript of our Q&A session. I am running as much of conversation verbatim as possible (with minimal edits) so you can read full context of answers.

Q: What are your feelings on multi-sports participation? Does it help athletes be better football players?

A: I don’t think there’s any question it helps. I don’t know if it’s specific to football but it helps them mentally. Any time you can put somebody in a position where there’s competition, I think its an incredible thing because of the experience they will receive. Whether they succeed or fail is not 100 percent the point. There has to be success learned before you can have success earned. You can’t earn it without learning it. the more opportunity someone has that’s a good thing.

Does it make someone a better football player because he’s a swimmer, or does it make a guy a better swimmer because he’s a baseball player or is someone a better lacrosse player because he’s a wrestler? I don’t know if there’s a correlation physically. To some degree as there’s movement involved in all of it. To me it’s the mental aspect of it all.

Q: There is a belief among some people around the program that you and the coaching staff do not encourage multi-sport participation. What do you say to that?

A: I can’t think of one player we never told not to do something. We’ve never said ‘why are you playing baseball or wrestling’ or whatever it might be. Pick the sport. I don’t think that’s ever happened. What we do ask if you are not doing something, get your butt in here. That we do ask.

Frankly I know this and I’ve heard this from kids but I’ve never heard coaches tell this to kids. I’ve heard kids say, ‘my future is in lacrosse so I think I need to focus on that.’ Well OK. Go play lacrosse. Dig in. I don’t think it’s beneficial for anyone to be here that doesn’t want to be here. I don’t see the value.

I think it’s interesting that we had a couple of kids who came out this year who hadn’t played before or played for a short time. Sean Trkla, Caleb Durbin. Why? Because we don’t encourage other sports? There was a kid last year as well. So it’s happened several times over the last few years.

Q: Could you and the coaching staff do more to promote the program internally? Maybe more kids would play football as a result?

A: We don’t go through the building recruiting seniors. We do try and identify some freshman that may not be involved. I have this one kid in my class who is a pretty good athlete but has never played football. That’s probably a conversation.

This may sound arrogant but I don’t mean it to. We expect a lot out of our guys. A whole lot. I don’t see the value of having anybody here who doesn’t want to be here. I don’t care if they are three-year starter in their senior year. If they don’t want to play, it ultimately becomes a self-inflicted problem. There is too much invested by everyone who is here. Primarily the kids.

I’ve had the same conversation with three different people over the past couple of weeks who think that we, our program, doesn’t do a very good job promoting other sports. My hard answer to that is this…does lacrosse do anything to promote football? Does baseball do anything to promote football? Does basketball do anything to promote football? Does wresting do anything to promote football? Why then should we do anything to promote them?

Having said that, certainly we support them. We are not detrimental to them, we don’t go around bad mouthing them or bitching or whatever. But is it my focus to promote other sports in my school? I’m not certain that is my responsibility but we are certainly not negative. Over the years some of our best players have been involved in other sports.

During football season we ask them to be here. That’s what we tell them. We don’t ask them to practice football during baseball season. The argument I get back is, ‘well you ask us to lift.’ I do. I do. But I also ask you to be successful and I don’t see how the lifting will hurt you in other sports.

I don’t even mean to make this sound like it’s about to come out of my mouth but if every coach asked their kids to lift to the degree that we do or to half the degree that we do I think we’d have a lot better athletes.

It’s not other people’s focus. In other sports your physicality is not as pronounced. In our sport it is. Does baseball compare? Lacrosse? Basketball? I don’t think so.

I don’t apologize for a second for what we ask our kids to do to have a chance to have success. Having said that, I don’t think you could ever find one kid that could walk in this room and say we told them not to play another sport.

I don’t think it’s ever happened. Ever.

###

OK, so there’s a lot to digest in this article. Before we end things, a few takeaways.

These are conclusions all based on the controlling question: How can the varsity football program get to and win a state championship by 2022?

*the coaching staff needs to do more to promote the sport internally. For under and upperclassmen. When guys like Trkla and Durbin show up for summer practice, it should not be a surprise to the coaches. How many Trkla’s and Durbin’s are there every year that don’t come out because of perceptions they have that come from outsiders who know nothing about the program? That’s a shame if more could have been done to communicate the pros of football in our community.

*where is the leadership to get coaches talking to one another? When was the last time Coach Spagnoli talked to the baseball coach? Or the wrestling coach? I didn’t get a chance to ask him. And I’m not saying that its his responsibility to initiate contact. But someone in the athletic department needs to get coaches in a room together and talk about how they help each other out. I don’t disagree with his sentiment… ‘why should we promote lacrosse if they don’t promote us?’ But how is continuing this parochial dynamic best serving student-athletes?

*the weight lifting mentioned by Coach Spagnoli is a concern brought up by multiple coaches in other programs I talked to (see earlier section about Libertyville). Weight training is not as emphasized in other sports. You can’t take three months off from strength and conditioning training and expect to be in shape for football. But this goes back to my the previous point…where is the communication? What’s preventing a football coach from sitting down with a lacrosse coach or wrestling coach or track coach and discussing this issue?

*one quick fix is to have a few more football coaches coach other sports. I know sophomore head coach Joe Busse coaches boys volleyball. Other than him, I don’t know of any football coaches who coach a winter or spring sport. That would not be a difficult thing to change but if coaches in one sport aren’t talking to other coaches from another sport, nothing will change.

I refer back to the comment from Luke Mertens at Lake Zurich:

“Unfortunately, conflicts exist and many schools over sharing athletes, which, to me, is all due to the egos of the coaches. If a coach truly cares about his/her athlete, then that coach will support his/her athlete in all athletic endeavors. All the adults need to remember that it’s not about us, rather, it’s about the kid and what he/she wants.”

I think it’s fair to ask if coaches at LFHS––not just football but all coaches––are doing all they can to encourage an ‘athletic culture’ at LFHS.

Again, what will get the Scouts closer to a state title by 2022?

Out with insularity. In with inclusiveness.

###

Last article I brought in some historical context around George Washington.

This time we finish with Bo Jackson. What would Bo do?

If he lived in Lake Bluff or Lake Forest, I think he’d change his mind and let his sons play football. He’d realize there is no better football culture than here.

If it were the winter months, he’d lace up his hoops sneakers, put some balls in the back seat, and find a pick up game. In the spring, he’d find his track cleats and get some interval training in. Summer? Laps in the outdoor pool.

Then he’d put a steak on the grill, uncap his favorite brew, unlace his Nike Kicks, put his size 12.5 feet up on his deck table and shout into the night…

PLAY BALL!!!

###

All the best,

Jon

Comments/thoughts/questions about this article? Email the author at jon@jonjkerr.com

YOUTH AND FEEDER FOOTBALL: STATE OF THE SPORT

This article was first posted on ScoutsFootball.com 

Over the past few months, I’ve been working through a biography of George Washington titled “Indispensable Man” by James Thomas Flexner.

One of the many remarkable aspects of Washington the person was his ability to inspire. Not entirely through words (he was a charismatic speaker) but deeds.

He fought the Indians with his troops on the front lines. At the end of a long day (and they were all long in the 18th century), he didn’t retreat to his tent. He’d stay with his men and talk about what took place in battle. He’d listen to what they had to say. He made them feel valued.

His curiosity was boundless.

A master land surveyor (large stretches of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio were first traversed by Washington on horse back and on foot) he understood that the land beneath our feet cannot be harvested without the will of those who nourish the soil.

You need people. And lots of them.

###

Football at the youth level in America is in a state of transition. Numbers are down across the country.

As a result, programs are having to adjust to survive. Some are tweaking the rules, others, like Highland Park in our own back yard, have cancelled leagues all together.

We in the Lake Forest/Lake Bluff community are not immune to these problems.

This fall, I coached a 7th and 8th grade lightweight team through the City of Lake Forest Recreation Department. The Jr. Scouts are technically a house travel team and the high school’s main feeder program (the other being St. Mary’s, which still has teams for 5-8 graders).

One of the other coaches this year had his youngest son on the team. He had been coaching for a number of years, going back to the late ‘aughts (2000’s) when his oldest played for the Jr. Scouts.

There were days this year we had maybe 15 kids at practice.

“I remember back when my son played, we had twice as many,” he would say. “We would hold scrimmages, kids were competing for starting jobs.”

Fifteen is perfect for a basketball team. In that sport, you can win with 10, or even six. But football is a different animal. You need bodies. And we didn’t have many this year (about 20). The lack of numbers was pervasive: at the 7th and 8th grade level, there were two teams––a lightweight and heavyweight division.

At the 5th and 6th grade level, there were enough bodies to fill one team––a flyweight team.

By comparison, a decade ago, the program had enough players to fill all four divisions permissible––flyweight, lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight.

So what’s changed?

###

I think we have to start by inserting arguments in two categories––controllable and uncontrollable.

UNCONTROLLABLE

Athletic/Co-Curricular Options

In 2016, Maine South (Park Ridge) won the Class 8A state title game. It was the program’s fourth state title in nine years. The school’s coach, Dave Inserra, was recently asked this question:

“What is the biggest obstacle in building a championship caliber program in your community?”

One sentence of his answer was particularly visionary:

“Our biggest obstacle is that our community and school offer so much to kids that they have options.”

That comment, coming from one of the more successful prep football coaches in the country, is worth digesting.

There are two ways to do so.

One is with a scarcity mindset.

“Well, our kids just have so many options today. Football isn’t a priority anymore. Nothing we can do about it, that’s just the way it is”

Or, one can look at his answer through a lens of prosperity (or exactly how Inserra and the Maine South program view the ‘obstacle’).

“It’s awesome our kids have options. It’s a challenge to break through in this day and age but we believe football is important. We need to find a way to make more kids and parents feel the same way”

I’m filing the ‘obstacle’ quote under ‘uncontrollable’ because it is. There are more options today for kids than there were 40, 30, 20, 10 or even five years ago. This reality will continue.

And no one would argue that’s a bad thing.

Population

According to the Census Bureau, the estimated population of Lake Forest in 2016 is 19,388. This is a slight uptick from the 2010 number of 19,375, the last year an official population study was taken. Both of these numbers are down from 2000, when Lake Forest had 20,059 residents.

Estimates have Lake Bluff’s 2016 population at 5,672, with a slight decline from 2010 (5,722) and down from 6,070 in 2010.

What the numbers show is that LF/LB community is not growing in population. It’s plateaued. The lack of new residents has a trickle down effect with the schools––the classification enrollment at LFHS in 2017 is 1,672. In 2007, it was 1,790, 1,931 in 1997––and sports/recreation participants.

If new families are not moving into the area, there are less kids to play football.

Anti-football mob 

This is a very loud group. And the arguments are not entirely invalid.

Every time an ex-NFL player dies young and in mysterious circumstances (i.e. Aaron Hernandez) we get a cascade of media coverage on CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). The pitchfork-carrying anti-football moms come out of the woodwork, latch onto the story to justify their entrenched belief––that playing tackle football causes permanent brain damage. They are relentless and will not be talked down off the ledge, no matter how inconclusive the science is regarding the truth as to the long term health impact of tackle football. And legacy media reporters and editors––New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune––fuel this belief by publishing stories that are decidedly on the side of the dangers of tackle football.

As a former newspaper guy myself (still writes for the Tribune Media Group, which owns suburban weeklies such as the Lake Forester) I understand the interest. It’s a big story and one that gets heavy online traffic. And some of the science is valid. There are risks with playing tackle football. I’m not pollyannaish about those risks. At the youth level, there are uncomplicated changes that can make the game safer. I’d ban kickoffs. I’d shrink field size. I’d ban tackling btw grades 3-5 and institute flag football as a ‘minor league’ for tackle. Leagues around the country are integrating these types of changes. I will push for changes such as these in our community.

But on the topic of the safety of tackle football…there is not enough objective scientific evidence that definitively reveals that playing the sport from the ages of 8-18 causes brain damage that will impact a youth’s cognitive ability later in life. I’m open to changing my opinion on this but having played the sport (though high school, like 97.2% of participants. Less than 3% go onto college and even a smaller margin to the NFL) covered and written about it, and someone who is now coaching it on the youth level, I feel very comfortable in reaching and sharing this belief.

Yet the anti-football movement marches on. Bad news sells newspapers, and drives traffic.

Big media is big business. 

CONTROLLABLE

Changing Model

If you’ve read this far, you may not be surprised at my conclusion.

The youth football program in Lake Forest/Lake Bluff is broken. It’s fallen behind other communities. Changes must be made or we will fall farther behind.

The good news? It can be fixed.

Investment 

When I was doing my research for this article, I came across something called “Project Play 2020”, an initiative from the Aspen Institute. The mission of the study was to craft specific, actionable steps for communities to help increase participation in youth athletics across the country.

Within that study is a section on the importance of involving multiple sectors in any youth sports enterprise.

That concept makes sense here.

All current stakeholders––parents, community recreation, national organizations––need to be included. But other sectors need to be brought into the conversation. Those sectors include local business and industry, public health, civic leaders, technology/media, and more. Investment must come in many forms and it starts by inviting in more stakeholders to be involved in the process.

Here’s a comment from subscriber Rick Schneider, who was generous enough to share this thought:

“Have the LFHS staff work with the 5th-8th grade rec football program and design their program and plays to be just like LFHS…you want these kids to be able to step in to the freshman program already familiar with the way the high school program is designed––structure, coaching, game management, plays, etc.”

And from David Pearre:

“Everyone (to the best of their ability) need to feel like a part of something bigger. As well as feel like they are included.”

I couldn’t agree more.

There are models. Locally, look at the Lake Forest Ice Hockey program(although participants are of high school age). There are football programs in our surrounding area such as New Trier, with their Jr. Trevians Program. These are well-organized, well-functioning, well-run grassroots, community youth sports programs.

It’s time we had the same in football.

Building On Positives

There are a lot of great things about the Jr. Scouts youth football program. The parental support is phenomenal. The kids care about football and are beginning to understand the invaluable life lessons that come from playing the sport. The Recreation Department provides the resources they can. I can’t imagine another program supervisor in another community works as hard as Ken Perini, who runs the youth program.

These are reasons I feel comfortable calling for change. The investment is already there. We just need more.

The purposes of these articles is to spread ideas on how the LFHS varsity team can compete for a state title by 2022. 

That can’t happen unless our future varsity Scouts are better prepared when they are junior Scouts.

###

WWGWD (What Would George Washington Do?)

He’d ask everyone what they thought. He’d listen.

Then he’d leave the room, pack his pipe with homegrown tobacco, enter his backyard and sit on the porch.

He’d have a smoke and thank anyone who’d listen what a lucky man he was.

You might hear him yell from miles away…

“Play Ball!!!”

Jon

Comments/thoughts/questions about this article? Send an email at jon@jonjkerr.com

Problems at Carmel Catholic: How Leadership Fails

As many of you know, Andy Bitto ‘resigned’ (was fired) as Carmel Catholic head football coach last month.

Of course, reasonable people know this was a forced resignation. He was fired.

I’m not writing this to sing the praises or laud the accomplishments of Coach Bitto.

Read my book, “The Boys in Brown” if you want a true depiction of the man.

What I’m writing about is how the Carmel of 2010 (the season I spent with the team) is far removed from the Carmel of 2017. In some ways, that’s a good thing. It’s a more diverse school than it was in 2010. It’s increased its foundation to allow for a more cultural and socio-economically diverse enrollment. It remains an outstanding academic and athletic institution that not only spiritually enriches its students, but gives them the tools necessary to succeed at four-year colleges and universities. For parents outlaying the $11,650 per year for tuition, college preparedness and spiritual enhancement are at the top of the list of desires.

Here’s what I believe is not on the top of the list of desires—leadership that is making decisions out of incompetence or vanity. Not sure which is worse but I do know neither are characteristics coveted in the powerful.

I’m going to share in this post what I know about the ‘resignation’ (firing) of Coach Bitto. You can draw your own conclusions. I hope one interpretation leads to the questioning of the people in charge.

###

When I was researching “The Boys in Brown” in 2010, there was an innocence about the place that was unmistakable. People that had been there for a long time—and there were quite a few ‘lifers’ still around then—would wax eloquently about the smell of the place, a scent both nostalgic and spiritual.

If a visitor walked the halls, they may not inhale the scent the lifers detected, but it was impossible to not absorb on some level, real or visceral, of a collective unity, mission and purpose. This is true regardless of your religious affiliation.

But even as far back as 2010, under the surface, there was tension.

Andy rarely spoke to the school president at the time, Judith Mucheck. The corporate-like, monochromatic management style of Mucheck made many staffers uneasy.

The collective strain came to a head at the end of the 2013 football season when Mucheck attempted to fire Andy (as well as a few other long time teachers and coaches). She was unsuccessful. Stripped of her powers, Mucheck packed up and left. There were few tears shed.

By the start of the 2015-16 school year, Carmel had hired a new president from Ohio, Bradley Bonham, Ph.D.

###

Almost all I was told about Bonham was positive. He brought in new ideas, shepherded fundraising (which took a significant hit during Mucheck’s tenure) and help lay out a long term vision for the school.

Specifically for athletics, a new turf field was put in at Baker Stadium. An extremely high tech, innovative scoreboard was added. All of these items cost money. Someone had to raise the money and approve the spending. In our conversations, Andy told me Bonham was all in. They appeared to have an amicable, cooperative working relationship (and partnership). I know this was important to Andy when put in the context of the previous president. He had an especially strong relationship with Fr. Bob Carroll, the school principal from 1994-2008.

It was Andy who nominated Fr. Bob for the East Suburban Catholic Conference Hall of Fame earlier this year. When he was selected and enshrined in April, this is what Andy told the Chicago Tribune about Fr. Bob:

“He put an emphasis on increasing the participation of the students and the number of coaches,” Bitto said. “He devoted resources and the stipends to hiring good coaches.”

Campus minister and former head football coach Mike Fitzgibbons on Fr. Bob:

“He was always so supportive of me as a person. It is good to see a person who is responsible for you give you the freedom to be the best you can be.”

Andy and Fitz always said how important it was to have all stakeholders within an organization pulling together towards a common goal. This is not unique to Carmel—this concept is taught I’m sure on day one at most business/management graduate schools. Under Fr. Bob, the support system was evident and verbalized on a regular basis. It wasn’t just the Robe; knowing Fr. Bob myself, having many chats with him over the years, he’d have been a terrific leader in any industry he chose. He values people over policy.

In conversations with many individuals around Carmel over the years, there has been an erosion in the value of people since the departure of Fr. Bob. That was in 2008, although his influence effectively ended with the hiring of Mucheck in 2006. It’s now a decade later.

###

Here’s what I know about the circumstances around Andy’s firing.

Around mid-season this year, Bonham held a meeting. I don’t know for sure who was in that meeting (I have an educated guess as to attendees) but I know the future of Andy’s employment was discussed. I believe a decision was made to let him go. Communication between Andy and Bonham came to all but a halt. Andy knew about the meeting and who was in attendance. I believe he knew he was going to be fired at this point.

During the season, and previous to this school year, Bonham had been having conversations with individuals who were unhappy with the direction of the program. As most you reading this know, the football program made some drastic changes in 2017. They scrapped the triple option scheme and went with a more spread-based offense, widely used in today’s high school football. A freshman quarterback—Athan Kaliakmanis—started all nine games this season. The decision to bring in Kaliakmanis (who from what I’ve heard is a nice kid and loves being a student at Carmel) came with baggage. His personal quarterbacks coach, Ryan Healy, was hired to run the offense. There were concerns about the fit with Healy leading up to the Sept. 22 St. Viator game.

At the game, a 24-3 loss, Healy was overheard using swear words directed towards players on the sidelines. He was fired after the game.

(there is more backstory to Healy’s firing. It was not the result of one incident but a series of incidents)

The team played better over the final four games, going 1-3 (including a heartbreaking 16-15 loss to Marian Central on homecoming Oct. 6) and finishing the season 1-8.

On October 24, four days after the final game, Andy is called into meeting with Bonham. In that meeting, he is told he is finished as coach. He has two options—either resign or be fired. He is given 24 hours to decide. He chooses to ‘resign’ (fired) and on Oct, 25, an email is sent out announcing his ‘resignation’ (firing). In the email, it states Carmel will begin a “search to fill the position of head varsity football coach”. I’ll get to that later in this email.

But first, let’s back track to events that predate Andy’s ‘resignation’ (firing).

###

All employees that work for any company in any industry are given a handbook. This typically is given the day someone is hired and is policy-driven, boiler plate stuff. Carmel has one.

On Friday, October 20, those in charge at Carmel distributed a new handbook.

Close to the end of the school day Oct. 20, employees received an email about the new handbook (no one I’ve spoken to who works at Carmel said they were expecting the school to distribute a new handbook). In the email, those in charge said employees had until Tuesday, Oct. 24 to read and sign the new handbook (one for contracted and one for non-contracted employees).

I was sent a copy of both. It’s pretty standard. What’s curious, according to employees, is the timing––the day of Carmel’s final football game of 2017 and four days before Andy’s ‘resignation’ (firing)––and a few specific changes in relation to Andy’s ‘resignation’ (firing).

On an ‘info sheet’ that was sent as a summary of the lengthier handbook, there are 19 line items the reflect changes to previous handbook. Multiple employees told me new policies on personal cell phone and social media use, speaking to the media and communicating with the Board of Directors are particularly dubious.

Here is section on BOD communication at the top of Pg. 32:

“Employees may not solicit alumni, colleagues, current parents, students, or associates to write letters, emails, conduct phone calls or seek other forms of communication to the media, Board of Directors or Corporate Board with the intent to modify or change school policy or personnel matters. In no way should the Board of Directors or the Corporate Board be directly contacted over employee disputes. Complaints regarding these types of issues should follow proper communication as outlined above…”

Hmm. Why is this policy necessary? And why was it necessary to enact such policy four days before Bonham told Andy he had to resign or be fired?

There is also a section, Page 31, titled “Vacant Positions”. It states:

“When there is a vacant position, it may be posted internally, externally, or both, as determined by the Administration based on the needs of the position.”

A quick check of Carmel’s website under employee opportunities (search done on the morning of Dec. 4) shows three positions posted, that of for Chief Advancement Officer, PT Parking Lot Monitor and PT Security Monitor. Nothing listed for “Head Varsity Football Coach”.

This circumstance would fit under the new handbook policy. The Administration may not believe the needs of the position are worth posting the job under the external job board. In their defense—the job of varsity football coach at Carmel Catholic is a high profile position and is not without interest. I know several coaches who hope to interview. No one needs to check a job board to know the position is open.

But the fact the job is not posted externally gets to a larger point as we circle back to questions about Andy’s firing and the shoehorning of the new employee handbook:

*Why was the handbook distributed five days before Andy’s ‘resignation’ (firing)?

*Why were changes made to handbook in relation to contact with media/Board of Directors/cellphone/social media use?

*Why did those in charge ask that handbook be signed the day of meeting when Andy was told he was no longer football coach (fired)?

*Is it possible that Bonham had already made his decision about Andy before Oct. 24 and was attempting to avoid any potential blowback?

(For anyone of you reading have even tangential knowledge of Mucheck’s attempt to fire Andy in 2013, it’s fair to say Bonham may not have wanted a sequel to that Titanic-like series of events)

These are all questions worth asking.

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The president of a Catholic high school has a difficult job in 2017-18. He or she must balance fundraising with the management of a team of dedicated teachers and faculty members. This person must be a dynamic leader and values the importance of people in executing school directives.

Multiple people I’ve spoken to about Bonham say he possesses strong skills as a strategic thinker and in long range planning.

Where he struggles is in the management of employees.

“(Bonham) is a reactor and doesn’t like conflict,” said one long time donor. “There’s animosity and fear amongst faculty right now.”

One donor points to a circumstance this year where long time Dean of Students Jim Nolan switched jobs with Kevin Nylen, the previous Assistant Athletic Director. I don’t know the details around this but the donor I spoke to said it was poorly handled.

“There is no HR (human resources) department,” he said.

Here’s what I know about the football coaching search.

Thursday, Dec.7, at 4:30 p.m., there is a Board of Directors meeting at the school. This is a scheduled meeting. On the docket is a special session. This special session could be about anything. Most likely, the special session is a forum for Bonham to discuss his plan for the football opening.

Two scenarios:

*Bonham has already made his choice and will announce hiring.

“That would be political suicide,” the donor told me.

*Bonham will announce he is forming a search committee and will ask board members for advice on whom should be named to the committee. Members will vet candidates and make a recommendation to Bonham, who has final say (along with the principal, Mrs. Susan Crook and the board) on the hiring of new football coach.

There is certainly a chance there is another outcome that could come out of Thursday’s special session but some form of the latter is likely.

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Throughout this article, I’ve reported what I know. I’ve avoided making too many subjective pronouncements as I trust those of you reading can draw your own conclusions.

In these final few paragraphs I’m flipping the script.

Here’s what I’m calling for—demand transparency. Demand that school president Brad Bonham explains what he is doing in relation to the hiring of the football coach. Demand that he communicate his process. Don’t accept murky and opaque behavior from your leadership. Instead, demand clarity and openness.

Here is his contact information: bbonham@carmelhs.org. Phone number 847-388-3340. To take it one step farther, show up to the board of directors meeting Thursday. Wait for an audience with Bonham and demand accountability.

The board meeting is this Thursday, Dec. 7 at 4:30 p.m. at Carmel.

I don’t know Bonham. I’m sure he’s a wonderful father, husband and has plans for great initiatives for Carmel Catholic in the future. But he badly bungled the Andy resignation (firing) and the “Open Door Policy” listed on Pg. 10 of the employee handbook appears to be selectively applied.

One faculty member I spoke to recently said this about making a career in Catholic education:

“It truly is a vocation, not a job. It’s a calling for people,” he said. “Everyone has to have each other’s backs.”

We know the vocation motivation is unchanged. Those who work there truly are called to do so.

On Carmel’s website, it’s mission is written: …”empowers students to be reflective thinkers, grateful stewards, and responsible leaders as an expression of faith.”

Is the leadership acting in such a manner?

It’s a fair question.

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I hope to continue to keep everyone informed as best I can. Feel free to email me directly at jon@jonjkerr.com with questions/comments/insights.

If requested, any information provided can be made confidential.

Feel free to share link as you wish.

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Best,

Jon