'Special' Broncos reunited after 10 years

Kyle Derickson knew a special occasion required a special pair of shoes.

And 10 years ago in late September, when Derickson was one of the senior standouts on Barrington's football team, there was no doubt in Derickson's mind he needed to go shopping.

Derickson was sure he and his teammates would be cutting the rug in Normal at the end of November.

"After the Fremd game I went out and bought a pair of turf shoes," said Derickson, who was the Daily Herald's Cook County All-Area co-captain with Fremd's Patrick Brown that fall. "After that game we weren't going to lose. I just had that feeling."

Turned out Derickson was right as the Broncos needed shoes for the turf at Illinois State University. They never lost that winning feeling until running into one of the best teams in state history in Wheaton Warrenville South in the Class 6A championship game.

But that couldn't diminish the wonderful feelings the most successful team in Barrington football history produced. Feelings players, coaches and fans will recapture during a 10-year reunion at Friday night's home game with Prospect.

This was a special team powered offensively by tailback Dan Pohlman, quarterback Scott Sagehorn and receivers Tim Meyer and Derickson.

Meyer and Derickson were also big parts of a stingy defense that included All-Area picks Pete DeBord up front and Joey Butera in the secondary.

And everything meshed together perfectly for coach Al Kamradt's crew.

"The thing I remember most was the unity of that team and the camaraderie we had," said Derickson, who is in his first year as an assistant coach at Elmhurst College. "That's what drove us."

Unity that has continued to this day as Sagehorn frequently talks to DeBord and Pohlman just talked last weekend with Meyer, Steve Canada and Preston Villers.

"With the amount of time we spent together I don't think anything comes close to what we experienced at Barrington," said Sagehorn, who played at Miami (Ohio) and now sells operating room instruments in Louisville.

"When I run into guys I played against in high school and they talk about their team, they don't talk to anybody and they don't keep in touch," said Pohlman, who played football and baseball at Northwestern and is now a trader in downtown Chicago after a minor-league baseball career. "That's how special and how close things were."

That was one of the things a relatively new and young assistant coach named Joe Sanchez noticed when he arrived at Barrington.

"To see how close they were, those are intangibles as coaches, sometimes you take for granted how important that is," said Sanchez, who is now the head coach. "You can't coach that type of closeness and bond they had for years."

Sagehorn moved in from Texas and Derickson from Palatine as seventh graders. It didn't take long for them to be accepted into the group.

"Once they saw somebody who could play they were like, 'OK, welcome,'" said Derickson, who would have gone to Fremd.

There were plenty of signs of success the year before when Barrington went 8-3 and lost in the second round at eventual 6A champ Lincoln-Way.

That belief built through a perfect regular season. Then came a memorable trio of playoff games that captivated the attention of the school and community.

The Broncos survived in the second round against Leyden when Derickson stopped a game-winning 2-point conversion at the goal line.

That set up a highly anticipated quarterfinal rematch with Lincoln-Way. An overflow crowd saw Barrington nearly fall behind by 3 touchdowns and then storm back to win 41-14.

And the semifinal drama at Naperville North was amazing with Pohlman's last-minute kick return for a touchdown, Sagehorn's tying conversion pass to Canada and Pohlman's 2 overtime touchdown runs to send the Broncos to Normal.

"We continued to believe and continued to go," said Derickson, who has to miss Friday's festivities because Elmhurst has a Saturday road game.

There was no perfect ending as Barrington ran into WW South's prolific passing game led by future Iowa and Illinois quarterback Jon Beuter and Pohlman's future Northwestern teammate Jon Schweighardt.

But that couldn't diminish the great times on and off the field that an expected contingent of 30 to 40 players will reminisce about this weekend.

"It was an entire team, the entire town, our high school and our friends," Sagehorn said.

"There was a lot of great stuff that happened," Pohlman said.

Great stuff that deserves to be remembered Friday.