IHSA comes down hard on North Chicago after brawl

As the melee ensued, Glen Kozlowski felt his heart breaking.

Now, the North Chicago football coach has been given the task of trying to mend a broken season. And it won't be easy.

On Thursday, the IHSA handed down a severe punishment against the Warhawks in the wake of a bench-clearing brawl that occurred in the first quarter of last week's game against Simeon and also involved fans pouring onto the field.

North Chicago will forfeit tonight's game against Vernon Hills and has been suspended from competition by the IHSA until further notice. The Warhawks will, however, be allowed to continue practicing.

Simeon, which was ahead 21-0 at the time and was declared the winner, will continue its season but eight players have been suspended for either one or two games each.

"I am heartbroken that this happened," said Kozlowski, the former Wauconda coach who is in his first year at North Chicago. "It's emotionally crushing. Football is a physical game, but what happened that night is not part of it at all. It's the last thing you think will happen in high school sports.

"For us to right the ship, we felt that what needed to happen was something decisive and swift. And yes, it might hurt, but we need to be held accountable and responsible for what happened."

Meanwhile, North Chicago's suspension will have a ripple effect in the North Suburban Conference Prairie Division. Vernon Hills may get a victory out of the deal, but a forfeit means one fewer game of experience for the Cougars.

"A forfeit is not something that anyone wants," Vernon Hills coach Tony Monken said. "You know, I've been coaching in this league for over 20 years and we've never had a problem at North Chicago. This is (an isolated incident) and you just hope that it ends here and that the kids understand that there are consequences for their actions.

"Like all of us, emotions can sometimes get the best of you, but part of growing up is learning how to control that."

The situation at North Chicago was totally out of control for about five minutes last week.

Kozlowski says that the trouble started well before kickoff when the two teams were "jawing at each other" in warm-ups. Then, after a punt, a North Chicago player leveled a Simeon player from behind well after the play was dead. A Simeon player then punched a North Chicago player.

"And that was it," Kozlowski said. "Both teams came out onto the field, fans were out there. We worked with the police to clear the stands and the game was called within about 15 minutes."

Kozlowski says that the coaches and officials first talked about whether or not the game could be continued without fans in the stands, but it was determined that all parties involved were better off avoiding further contact.

"It was just so disappointing," Kozlowski said. "We took our kids into the team room and we had an hour-long discussion about what happened, about responsibility and accountability. I think at that point, they were genuinely embarrassed about what they did and how it makes the community look. But in the heat of the moment, 16-, 17- and 18-year old kids sometimes don't think about that.

"We've got to make sure that they do think about it in the future. We don't ever want that to happen again."

Plan B: While Vernon Hills coach Tony Monken had to plan all week as though his team would have a game against North Chicago on Friday, he also had to make plans in case it didn't.

What would the Cougars do with an open Friday night?

Monken said that he and his staff talked about getting together with Morgan Park for a game. Morgan Park, Simeon's Week 3 opponent, could have also had an open night.

"We thought, 'Well, it would be great to still play and it would be great to play that type of competition,'" Monken said. "But then we started thinking about how we have only 33 guys on our roster and for us to play a game that has no meaning, we questioned whether or not that would be the smartest thing to do."

Monken says a fun thing to do would be for his team to attend one of the other Prairie Division games in the area this weekend.

"I think the (Grant at Lakes game) will be a really good game," Monken said. "Maybe we can go over and watch that."