Expect some electricity Saturday at Greg True
Lights are going on this season for the St. Edward football program in more ways than one.
There will be electricity in the air at Greg True Field in Elgin on Saturday night, literally, as the Green Wave play their first contest under permanent lights at 7 p.m. against Hiawatha. St. Edward fans found their team's victory in last Friday's season opener at Hampshire equally illuminating.
The Wave is 1-0 for the first time since 2002 after coming away with a 15-7 victory in a hard-fought defensive struggle. The win trumpeted loud and clear an indisputable point: not only can St. Edward once again compete with quality area teams after three down years, it can beat them.
"Beating Hampshire meant a lot," said senior Ryan Eigenhauser, who experienced just 1 victory as a member of the last three St. Edward varsity teams. "It signified a turning point that we're going to start winning ballgames. St. Edward isn't going to be 0-9 every year. We're going to be winning games and talking playoffs."
It has been a long climb back for St. Edward. The program never dominated the Suburban Catholic Conference for an extended period of time ala league powers Driscoll or Montini, but through the years St. Edward always put up a respectable fight against those programs and earned its share of SCC wins against the likes of Marmion, St. Francis, Immaculate Conception and Aurora Central.
Former head coach Rich Sanders coached St. Edward for 9 seasons, a tenure that included the school's second playoff appearance in 2003, when the Wave finished 5-5.
But Sanders left the program on short notice in July of 2005, leaving the Green Wave without a leader weeks before August practice was scheduled to begin. The administration needed a head coach and offered the position within two weeks to Mike Rolando.
To that point Rolando had coached only seventh and eighth graders in the St. Edward Crusaders feeder program. He was known as an enthusiastic, positive coach and he and the Crusaders enjoyed great success at the junior high level, winning the Illini Youth Football League Super Bowl the previous season.
However, Rolando inherited a virtually empty nest when he arrived at St. Edward. Many of the program's top juniors and seniors feared instability with Sanders leaving so hastily and many abandoned the program for what they felt were greener pastures at Larkin, Elgin, South Elgin or even the hated but hallowed sidelines at Driscoll. Others simply opted not to play football anymore.
Though the older players didn't know Rolando, the younger ones knew their former IYFL coach to be a charismatic motivator and the underclassmen were thrilled by his hiring.
The coaching change even led Eigenhauser, who had attended Larkin's football camp the summer before his freshman year, to switch plans and enroll at St. Edward to play for Rolando, though he had attended public schools his entire life.
"When I found out that Coach Ro was going to coach here, I said I'm going to come to St. Ed's and play for him," Eigenhauser said. "I had faith since the beginning."
The exodus of talent left Rolando and his staff with slim pickings. Just 33 players remained in the entire program at the start of the 2005 season, leaving the coaching staff no alternative but to play freshmen and sophomores at key positions long before they were ready, many on both sides of the ball.
The results were predictable. In 2005, the Wave went 0-9 and were outscored 404-79. St. Edward wasn't just losing, it was getting obliterated from start to finish almost every week. The Green Wave was washed out 53-12 by Hampshire, 61-7 by Montini, 42-0 by Driscoll, 49-0 by St. Francis and 51-7 by Marian Central.
"I always thought they did a nice job with what they had," Marian Central coach Ed Brucker said this week. "They always played hard, but they were at a big disadvantage without the older guys."
The only close call was a 20-13 loss in Week 2 against Rockford Christian Life. Otherwise, St. Edward faced a physical mismatch every week.
"I remember walking out on the field as a freshman when I was a 14-year old kid and playing against actual grown men and just thinking, 'How am I going to live through tonight?' " Quiroga said.
Things didn't get much better in 2006. Again the team finished without a win and was outscored 399-102, but the teaching never stopped. The coaching staff worked with what they had on the roster, training the players on the fundamentals, planting seeds they knew might not bear fruit for another year or two.
Hopes were higher in 2007, when the stable of players throughout the program had more than doubled in two years to 70. However, only three of those players were seniors, which may have been the difference as to why the junior-sophomore-heavy Wave lost its first four games of the season in excruciating fashion by 5 points to Hampshire, by 2 points against Aurora Christian, by 16 points in a turnover-filled game against Aurora Central and by a single point against Immaculate Conception.
The Green Wave finally tasted honey on Oct. 5, 2007, when they beat St. Francis 28-26 in overtime to snap a school-record losing streak of 26 games. The win came almost three years to the day since the program's last victory on Oct. 8, 2004 and offered a glimmer of hope that all their efforts as players and coaches were beginning to pay off.
Now comes 2008, the year the program has building toward since the day Rolando took over. The opening day roster of 31 consisted of all upperclassmen: 15 seniors and 16 juniors. The 15 seniors are more than Rolando has coached in the last three seasons combined.
A vigorous off-season conditioning and strength program in place for three years now has St. Edward fielding a far more physical team than in recent seasons and one with an astonishing 65 years of combined varsity experience. The hard lessons the players learned, the whippings they absorbed during the rebuilding process, and all the lean times they endured the last three years have forged a stout team confident it can play with anyone. After three seasons of small Ro-gains, the Green Wave now present a big, hairy challenge for their opponents.
"When you go out there as a freshman or sophomore you're nervous, but now you're nervous for a different reason," four-year starter Jim Waclawik said. "We were all nervous going into the Hampshire game, but it was nervous excitement. Before it was nervous like we might get killed. We would go out and try to just stay alive.
"Now we're going out and we're trying to punish people. The whole mentality of this team has reversed. It's good to have a strong bond. Now we can look to the freshman and help them grow better, and they'll probably do better now that they don't have to play up. So it's getting better across the board."
After three years of results best swept under the rug, the St. Edward football program is ready to step into the spotlight on Saturday night and prove it can be a playoff contender. The slow, steady rise from the ashes is a credit not just to Rolando and his players, but to the entire St. Edward community for having faith in a long-term rebuilding process. The program could have faced extinction without the proper backing from the administration, parents and boosters.
"It's great to see everyone getting excited again," Rolando said. "It just kind of shows the type of support the program gets. (Saturday night) will be a big event and there will be a lot of fans here, but really it's just another stage for us to show that we've improved.
"And we intend to keep improving. We didn't practice for four years to beat Hampshire. That was Game 1, and we didn't come here to win 1 game and just be better than last year. The kids are thinking we can win a few more games, so that's what we're going to try to do."