Friday Night Lights spotlights high school football in Huntley

Is there anything better than Friday night high school football where an entire town comes together to support the local team?

In Huntley this year, Red Raider pride can be seen all over town. Last year, as the local radio station with a motto of keeping the community informed and connected, at Huntley Community Radio 101.5 FM, we decided to take a swing at broadcasting the games for the Red Raiders.

With a game plan mostly created by WGN Hall of Fame and former Chicago Bears producer, Jim Corollo, we had our technical plan in place. Our plan was to try it during one game - but then one turned into all of the home games.

This year, we have beefed up the program. Our technical team - including Ken Czerwinski, Robert Yeoman, Allen Pollack, Eric Thomas and Jim Eggers - with counsel from Jim Corollo, do a masterful job at capturing the essence of the live event by managing the program, working with regular, sideline and crowd microphones and making sure we hit the necessary marks on the radio for a successful broadcast.

Our broadcast team has grown as well: Curtis Koch is the play-by-play guy, William Geheren is the color commentator. On the sidelines, we have Don Drzal and Joe Loiacano. New members of the team are Steve Wilt, who is our statistician, and Andrew Burkey, who will be our spotter and help with social media.

This year, our goal is to make the broadcast more interactive, as well as to be the voice for road games. In developing the HCR Red Raider Club, we have been able to extend our reach all over the world.

Players' relatives are able to listen and join in on the broadcast.

By utilizing our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HCRHuntleyHSSports/ and by following us on Twitter @RedRaiderClub16, you are able to virtually watch and listen to the game online, even if we are not broadcasting.

For home games, we are live on the radio from 6:45 p.m. (our pregame show) until after the postgame show. The radio station is 101.5 FM. You can also hear us streaming on huntleyradio.com from anywhere. Now you can also enjoy live video from Facebook Live, or follow play-by-play on Twitter.

We also wrap things up after the game with a live interview from the coach. Shortly after the games, the event is available on podcast at huntleyradio.com/hcr/raider-radio/.

Give us a listen, "Friday Night Lights in Huntley" has never been this good!