24 Hours of Football: "We Wanted To Come Up With Something Meaningful"
One Chicagoland conference proves that ingenuity and enterprise can outwit careless public health mandates in staging a season-ending Saturday Showcase event
(Photo Credit: Newsbreak)
Over a 24-hour period from Friday night through Saturday, The Kerr Report publisher Jon J. Kerr attended two conference championship football games, the first being the Mid-Suburban League in Barrington followed by the DuKane Conference title game played at Huskie Stadium in DeKalb. The first, from the MSL title game, was published Tuesday. Today’s article is from one of two DuKane Conference games played Saturday.
In late January, the sport of football, left for dead in Illinois, was given an 11th hour reprieve.
The Governor, J.B. Pritzker, who for months had dismissed sports as being “unsafe” for kids to play, changed his worldview 48 hours after Election Day.
Football was now considered safe enough to have a season.
It would be unlike any other in the history of the state—six games, no state playoffs and a 30 mile restriction on travel.
If there were ever a time for outside-the-box thinking in a sport not known for audacious gambles, now was that time.
Within days of football’s return, athletic administrators and coaches in the DuKane Conference, formed in 2018 and made up of eight teams from DuPage and Kane Counties, hammered out a plan for the truncated spring 2021 season.
The format would be as follows: the four teams that make up the Tri-Cities (St. Charles East, St. Charles North, Batavia and Geneva) would play each other in a classic round robin as would the four teams from DuPage (Glenbard North, Lake Park, Wheaton North and Wheaton South). For the second half of the six-game slate, teams would be re-seeded with match ups determined based on record.
The idea behind the playoff-style composition was to create the most competitive match ups possible and be a showcase for the conference.
“Between Matt Fisher (Wheaton North Athletic Director, the conference’s resource AD for football) and the coaches, we wanted to come up with something meaningful the last three weeks and have big games, competitive games and culminating in an event where we can say its highlighting the DuKane conference,” Batavia AD Dave Andrews said.
That event amounted to a April 24 doubleheader DuKane Conference Championship Day pitting the best from the Tri-Cities against the best from the DuPage. In the first game, St. Charles North would play Wheaton Warrenville-South. The second game would pit Batavia against Wheaton North.
But in order to pull it off to maximum fulfillment, the conference needed a facility partner.
With the Illinois Department of Public Health limiting capacity at outdoor sporting events to 25 percent, the conference felt it needed a stadium that would allow for several thousand fans while in compliance with spectator guidelines.
For a week three matchup against Geneva, Andrews booked Huskie Stadium (seating capacity 24,000) in DeKalb, the home of the Northern Illinois University football team and one of two alternating sites (along with Memorial Stadium in Champaign, IL) of the Illinois High School Association Class 1A-8A state title games. The April 2 Batavia-Geneva game served as a test run for the championship game.
From the beginning, Andrews and other conference officials led with this top of mind directive—how can we best serve our student-athletes and fans?
“Any high school facility (will allow for) 400-500 people tops. Typically that goes to the parents, but very few students,” Andrews said. “With the Covid rules and IDPH rules, (playing at Huskie Stadium) is the perfect scenario to get all spectators and all fans and students an opportunity to watch high school football this year. That was the impetus to bringing (the game) out here.”
With the exception of a few NIU football games played in the fall, Huskie Stadium had sat dormant for almost all of 2020. School officials were happy to have the business and host the games.
When I walked into the stadium 20 minutes or so before the scheduled Saturday 4 p.m. opening kick off between Batavia and Wheaton North (St. Charles North won the first game, defeating Wheaton-Warrenville South 28-21), I was greeted by friendly, eager operations staff members.
One greeter, Ethan, walked me right from the entrance onto the playing field (no press box on this day…60 degrees with minimal wind at kickoff).
Concessions and restrooms were open. Other than the state mask mandate, no restrictions. Fans were split between grandstands behind both sidelines, with between 500-600 people total on both sides in attendance.
When Batavia kicked off to Wheaton North promptly at 4 p.m., there I was, right on top of the action, a bird’s eye view to a special event. Most of us haven’t been able to say that for awhile.
The game, an eventual 16-7 victory by Wheaton North, was not the offensive shootout of the MSL championship game the previous night. But it did not disappoint as both participants were clearly two of state’s best this spring.
Batavia is coached by Dennis Piron, who in 10 seasons has won a lot of games—98 before Saturday—and two Class 6A state championships.
He believed this season’s roster of Bulldogs to be the one of the most talented he’s coached, a third state title possible.
(Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune)
But politics and public health intervened and eliminated the state playoffs. Piron and his staff were forced to amend the team’s optimum destination, but not its ultimate ambition.
“Our kids and our coaches and our community have fully devoted themselves to pushing the envelope at an given moment for the benefit of these kids,” Piron said.
A 1983 graduate of Batavia who has coached at the school since 1992, there are few coaches like Piron in Chicagoland—a figure who has played and coached at one place for so long that the conjoined association is hard to separate.
That commitment to one community, and in turn this spring season, leaves Piron concerned over the long term cost of that devotion.
“There’s a word I’ve been trying to find for a few days. Anxiety. Yes, there's a great deal of anxiety that's been placed upon our kids and coaches, and almost made to feel like you're doing something wrong early on,” Piron said. “And then, as you moved along, the things that you have to accept, to get this to happen for themselves to share. What kids, families and coaches have had to go through the season is unprecedented.
“You know what? I'll never worry ever about a big game again. Ever.”
If Piron admitted to any stressers heading into the Wheaton North game, it would appropriate if they were placed at the quarterback position.
Batavia’s starter, Kyle Oroni, broke his leg in the Bulldogs week two victory vs St. Charles North.
Oroni is a classic drop back passer with the height (6-foot-2) and athleticism that indulges the playbook of greedy offensive coordinators.
To replace Oroni, Batavia moved arguably its best athlete and Northern Illinois recruit, Trey Urwiler, to quarterback. While a Division 1 level talent, Urwiler is a wide receiver, not a quarterback and the injury-forced positional switch changed how the Bulldogs played. They would have to run the football more and become more reliant on the ground to score points. Without Oroni as the trigger man pushing the ball downfield, Urwiler, now the quarterback, would be used primarily as a extra runner to take advantage of his elite speed in space.
No coach would argue this creed—how the best friend of a one-dimensional offense is an opportunistic defense.
That’s just what happened in the game’s opening possession.
A deflected pass from Wheaton North quarterback Mark Forcucci fell into the arms of Batavia’s Jalen Buckley, who raced 51 yards for a touchdown. Three plays in, and the Bulldogs led 7-0.
But Wheaton North did not earn its way into a Saturday showcase slot by folding in the face of adversity.
In 1986, the Falcons won the Class 5A Illinois state championship. But over the next 20 seasons, Wheaton North missed the postseason (12 times) more than it made the playoffs (eight).
Over that same two decade-plus period between 1986-2007, the school’s local counterpart, Wheaton-Warrenville South, rose into one of the state’s best. The Tigers won four Class 6A state titles from 1992-1998 and three more (2006, 2009-10) after Ron Muhitch became coach in 2002.
With similar enrollment (both schools hover around 2,000) and a share of ample area resources and robust feeder programs, Wheaton North, while maybe not equalling the state playoff success of Wheaton South, could certainly do better than the .500 record of the program over an 18-year stretch from 1990-2007.
Matt Fisher, the Falcons athletic director in 2007, made a shrewd hire.
He tasked one of Muhitch’s top assistants, Joe Wardynski, with building a consistent winner at Wheaton North.
It proved to be the right move.
In his first 11 seasons, Wardynski’s teams qualified for the postseason seven times.
“He gets kids in the weight room and committed to football,” Fisher said.
Wardynski’s 2020 team shaped up to be one of his best, with a blend of seniors (19) and juniors (38) expected to make a state playoff run.
Instead, the Falcons got the only consolation prize available—a match up against Batavia in a college stadium on the final day of the spring 2021 season.
(Photo Credit: Shaw Local)
After the pick six by the Bulldogs in the game’s opening minutes, the Falcons never flinched the rest of the way.
A first quarter field goal got them on the board followed by a Forcucci touchdown pass to Casey Morrison. For most the game the Falcons led 10-7.
Three Batavia second half possessions concluded after failed fourth down attempts deep in Wheaton North territory. As the fourth quarter clock drained away, it appeared the Bulldogs would finally find the end zone and go ahead score.
Instead, they found heartbreak.
On a first and goal from the Falcons’ nine-yard line and four minutes left in the game, a bad snap bounced on the turf. The ball found its way into the hands of Wheaton North senior Riley Dravet, who ran 80 yards down the sideline for a scoop and score and insurmountable 16-7 Falcons lead.
It was an astonishing turn of events and never in the abbreviated 2021 spring season had a student section, as Wheaton North’s did in the moment of Dravet’s fumble recovery and touchdown gallop, reverberate with more sonic boom.
Seconds after the final horn sounded, rain began to fall in Huskie Stadium. Wardynski addressed his team one final time, giving adulatory praise for their accomplishment, more once-in-a-lifetime test of mental endurance than feat of physical strength.
“We talked about how it was a six-game season and the games themselves went fast. But these kids have worked so hard for so long; back to pod work then contact days then summer camp then start and stop. This has been a long time coming for these kids,” Wardynski said. “I hope this is the last spring we play.”
Amen to that coach. For all involved.
Not wanting to leave without talking to Piron, I found him lingering around the Batavia sideline, one of the few remaining on the field.
Prion and I have had many conversations over the past year. I’ve found him to be frank, honest, truthful and often exasperated by the circumstances in his home state since Covid swept over everyone’s lives in March of 2020.
He’s someone who cares deeply about his players and community, but also possesses a global awareness and empathy for all impacted by this terrible virus.
“As rewarding as it’s been to play, it’s been so emotional and so difficult and such a challenge to make happen. It’s going take a toll. It’s going to take a toll, it really is,” Prion told me in a conversation earlier in the week.
Now, after losing a game when his team didn’t score an offensive touchdown despite rushing for 313 yards, Piron looked like a coach whom along with his staff and players, put every ounce of energy they possibly could into football only to have the sport not love them back.
“It’s hard to explain. I’m about miserable as you can feel after a game, when you think you should have won and it didn’t happen for you,” Piron said. “This six week season felt like six months.”
The sport’s treatment by state leaders, labeling football as ‘high-risk’, forcing a seven-month delay to the season, compounded by Orsini’s unlucky injury (“from that moment on everything was just different. A lot of the fun got sucked out of the balloon”) made what should have been a season of triumph less so, the Bulldogs never reaching their full potential, a team that Prion said could have been his best.
But even with all of the angst, all of the fretful evenings that rolled into fidgety mornings, Piron finds peace in his 2021 spring Batavia Bulldogs.
“Still wonderful and worth it,” Piron said, his voice trailing off.
As we say our good byes, Piron to the bus waiting only for him and I to an empty parking lot, we both simultaneously remove our masks.
“I think it’s time for these to be gone,” we said.