The athletic offices at Crystal Lake Central were aglow when school opened after the Labor Day weekend. And why not?
The boys cross-country team is riding high, and the volleyball team was 5-2, just to name a couple of reasons.
The biggest reason athletic director Doug Blundy was feeling good was the football team had won for the first time since Sept. 24, 1999. The Tigers’ 28-14 victory at Dundee-Crown ended a 14-game losing streak.
“Obviously, we’re feeling good,” Blundy said. “The sophomore football team won too. We haven’t ordered our playoff tickets, but it’s a nice feeling. If you look at the schedule, you can say, `We’ve got a chance here, a chance there’ … A lot of times in the past, we haven’t been able to say that.”
More Top Picks Best Upright Vacuums For Thick Carpet
Ever since Crystal Lake went to three schools, with the opening of Prairie Ridge, Central athletics has struggled. The majority of Prairie Ridge students came from the Central district. Football has probably been hit the hardest. High school football is a numbers game, and Central’s numbers haven’t been strong. The record reflects that. After going 5-4 the first year the schools split, the next three seasons were 0-9, 2-7, 0-9, and football coach Dennis Koerner resigned after last season.
“After one of our games, we lost 40-0 or something, a parent came up to me and said, `I hope you’re proud of this team,'” Blundy said. “And I said, `Yeah, I am.’ There was not a coaching staff in the conference that worked harder or a team that worked harder. It was a strange situation. Our coach resigned, but he had done nothing wrong. I hate to keep saying this, but it comes back to the school split.”
Central’s enrollment is growing, but not at the rate of some other conference schools. The light at the end of the tunnel could be a big school bus full of athletes headed to other schools. It could be years–if ever–before the enrollments even out. So who would want to coach in such a situation?
Mike Adams.
Adams has good coaching bloodlines. He played for his legendary father, Paul Adams, at Deerfield, where Prairie Ridge coach Dave Whitson was an assistant. Still, he could be thought too young to know any better. At 28, however, he knows the situation after five years as an assistant at Central. It was less a matter of building an impressive won-loss record than being where he wanted to be.
“A lot of it had to do with the culture at this school and the kids at this school,” said Adams, who is 1-1. “I did my student teaching here, right out of college. There was an atmosphere with this group of kids, this student body, that appealed to me. I really enjoy what I do day-in, day-out. To have this opportunity as head football coach allowed me to develop that in a greater capacity. Regardless of the condition of the program, I was interested in taking the job.
“It is more than wins and losses. Unfortunately, in society the determining factor in success is wins and losses, but there is so much more. Eventually, you get to a point that you have the program going the way you want it there will be a lot of positive things going on there. Hopefully it will include wins.”
Central has a varsity squad of 42 players, and half of them are seniors who hadn’t experienced a victory as varsity players. One of the things Adams saw was that so many athletes kept working hard without the rewards of winning. It’s a lot easier to work hard when you know there will be a payoff late Friday night. Since the seniors entered Central, the Tigers were 2-26 going into the Dundee-Crown game.
Crystal Lake Central took a 20-0 lead early in the fourth quarter and started to play like a team that hadn’t won in the 21st Century. Dundee-Crown crept to within 20-14, but an 85-yard run by senior quarterback Chris Lausche late in the game clinched the victory.
“We ran that play to both sides and scored on two of them,” said Lausche of the option. “We ran it about five times, and it was there. We came out strong, and all up and down the sidelines, the intensity was up. We took it to them. We were a little worried when they scored two touchdowns and were driving. I think this will give us an extra boost. For most of us, this is our first win. All the hard work we put in finally paid off.
“For me, personally, [the losing streak] just made me work harder. I’m sure there were plenty of my teammates who were discouraged. It’s hard not to be when everyone says things about how bad you are. But we hung in there.”
The future of the program will be determined by Adams’ ability to get kids out for football. There is a large freshman class of 45 and a talented group, though smaller in number, of sophomores. Those two classes might, along with this year’s juniors, be able to bring the Tigers back to a competitive program.
The future starts Friday night at home against Crystal Lake South. The Gators no doubt took notice of Central’s victory and don’t want to contribute to a Crystal Lake Central winning streak. It should be a game to look forward to.
“We haven’t always been able to say that,” Blundy said.