Christian Liberty's on the move

Future athletes at Christian Liberty Academy may view Nathan Ellison as a pioneer.

Ellison has already filled that role at the school located in the building that once housed Arlington High School. The junior from Arlington Heights was the quarterback and one of 23 players on Christian Liberty's first varsity football team last fall.

And Ellison, who also plays basketball, will be part of the school's first group of athletes making the leap into IHSA competition when the next school year starts in August.

"It's very exciting," said Ellison, who has attended Christian Liberty since he was in the fifth grade. "We want to lay a foundation and hopefully everyone can capitalize and build on what we've done.

"Hopefully the guys coming up from the lower grades can see that and try harder to build on that."

Steve Rowland, who has coached basketball and been athletic director the last 11/2 years of his decade at Christian Liberty, said students and parents had always asked about the possibility of joining the IHSA.

Rowland said the school never saw a real need to go beyond competing with similar, non-IHSA members. Then a move into the Indian Trails Conference, which includes IHSA members such as Alden-Hebron and Mooseheart, set in motion the push to join the IHSA.

Movement in other conferences led to Christian Liberty being asked to follow other members into the Northeast Athletic Conference, which will start competition next fall.

"We knew when we were asked they'd like us to be full (IHSA) members," Rowland said. "We talked to the school board and the elders and said maybe it's time we do go that route.

"Scheduling is so much easier and it's a great opportunity for our kids to showcase their talents at the state level, if they get that far.

"It just happened this way. Things happened that maybe this is the direction we need to go."

Rowland said Christian Liberty is doing what is needed to be recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education and to become accredited in order to become an IHSA member.

Rowland said becoming accredited can be a two-to-three year process, so the school also is going through the quicker ISBE recognition process - where the school is checked out and determined to be legitimate.

And Rowland said "he can't foresee any problem" with Christian Liberty achieving full IHSA membership for 2009-10.

"We've always had parents say, 'How come you aren't full members' and 'our kids want to go to state,'" Rowland said. "The answer always was we never felt we needed to be. There wasn't any incentive for us to go that route - not until we got to the ITC and all this happened.

"I could understand where the school was coming from wanting to be independent. And I understand what it means for kids to play for that banner.

"I understand sport and the emphasis on high school athletics is such a big social side of high school."

It's something Christian Liberty has already experienced more of this year after joining the ITC and starting a football program. In the past, games and events were often scheduled on the fly, which made it difficult to develop student interest.

A change was evident when the girls volleyball team made a serious run at the conference championship.

"It does create a lot of excitement and a whole different perspective," Ellison said.

"Just the excitement of the kids, you could sense it walking around the halls," Rowland said. "There were signs on lockers saying 'Go varsity volleyball.'

"You stand back and say this is a good thing for kids. You want to compete and be playing for something."

Starting a football program and having home games on campus was another significant change.

"The stands were full and the buzz around school with the parents and kids was really neat," Rowland said. "Our school never experienced that kind of feeling.

"I had a letterman's jacket but our kids never understood that and had never been around it. Now we're starting to get a taste of that excitement level and the kids are really excited about that."

They also got a taste of the impending level of competition. The football team lost its inaugural game 76-0 to Alden-Hebron, a Class 1A playoff qualifier, and all eight of its games.

"We told them it wasn't going to be easy, this is a building process," Rowland said.

"After the first year everyone starts picking up interest and wants to play," said Ellison, who was one of only six players with previous football experience. "No one quit and everyone stuck it out so it was really good."

Rowland said athletes in the school's 10 sports crave the increased competition. He also said it won't change Christian Liberty's priorities.

"We're not here for athletics, we're here for academics," Rowland said. "It's great we're moving in the direction we're moving, but I don't think you'll ever see this school become an Oak Hill or schools you see all around the country.

"We want them to compete and run to win the race but that's not our sole purpose here."

But Christian Liberty students such as Nathan Ellison, who has friends who attend Hersey, will have a much different athletic purpose in the next school year.

"We should have done this (joined the IHSA) a while ago," said Ellison, whose brother Ben is a Christian Liberty graduate and sophomore in college. "He said, 'We should have done that when I went to school.'"