Hersey selects Teonic as new head football coach

Dragan Teonic was wrestling with returning to coach football at the college level or staying in high school.

Teonic was a part of three NJCAA non-scholarship school national championship teams at Harper College. The former Morton High School quarterback was also part of a successful Riverside-Brookfield program and spent this past season at York.

The vacant head coaching job at Hersey was an eye-opener to Teonic. And the two parties closed the deal when the school named Teonic as its new head coach Friday after his hiring received school-board approval Thursday night.

"I felt the only way I'd come back to high school was if the fit was right," Teonic said. "This challenge was too good to pass up.

"I'm a competitor by nature and all of my teams have been competitive. The situation at Hersey was where I was looking to go."

Teonic replaces Mark Gunther, who resigned a week after his sixth season as head coach. Hersey was 1-8 the last two seasons, winless in 2007 and had its last winning season in Gunther's first when it was 7-3 and lost in the first round of the Class 7A playoffs.

"I was looking and waiting for the right one - somewhere I could be successful and build a great program," Teonic said. "Hersey's a great academic institution with great athletes. It's a place where they're hungry to win and the administration seems to be very supportive about that."

Teonic was 23-11 in three years as Harper's head coach. He resigned after his 2008 team finished 11-1, won the NJCAA non-scholarship national title and finished the season ranked third overall in the country.

Harper also won two NJCAA non-scholarship titles in Teonic's three years as its offensive coordinator. He coached the offensive linemen in Riverside-Brookfield's high-powered passing attack and at York was the special teams coordinator and linebackers coach.

"Every time we talked to him you could feel (the excitement) more and more," said Hersey assistant principal of student activities John Novak. "One of the biggest things he said that made an impression on us was, yes, he wants to win, but he wants to win the right way.

"We all had long talks about what is the right way to do this and about including kids and holding kids to high standards and trying to get the most and best out of kids."

Novak said Teonic was chosen from what he called "a strong pool" of 45 applicants for the job at one of three Mid-Suburban League schools to win a football state championship (6A in 1987).

"His experience and ability to lead coaches as well as players and the way he's going to attack practice and the way he's going to compete," said Hersey boys athletic director and head boys basketball coach Steve Messer. "All those things indicate he was going to go in the right direction."

Teonic's Harper teams were prolific offensively and the last two years were led by NJCAA All-America quarterback Garrett Barnas, who is now playing at Northern Illinois. But Teonic said he wouldn't be "married" to a specific offensive and defensive system.

"Every year you take a look at what you have and adjust to the strengths of the players," said Teonic. "We'll adjust to what the players can do and one thing I'm known as is a players' coach."

Teonic watched film of last season's team and said the No. 1 goal will be cutting turnovers. But he also liked some of what he saw in an injury-plagued season against a schedule with seven playoff teams.

"That's what made me excited about Hersey and thinking we can win," Teonic said. "Based on the film I've seen so far never once did they give up. They definitely didn't lack effort."

Said Novak: "The fact is he's done it before and Mark (Gunther) built a really good base here. The opportunity is here where I don't think we have to rebuild the program from scratch.

"We have a good, solid foundation and Dragan seemed ready to take the lead."