Football teams share pairings plans
Starting at 8 p.m. Saturday the IHSA will announce its football playoff pairings both streaming online at IHSA.tv and also on Comcast SportsNet.
Each local team rings in the new season in its own way. The gatherings range from the homespun to the blowout to a coaches-only gathering in the man cave.
Marmion’s Dan Thorpe will gather with players, coaches and parents in a room of a North Aurora restaurant, rented by Marmion’s sports boosters.
Snacks, beverages and conversation will flow until the announcement of who the Cadets will play in the first round.
“And as soon as our bracket is up the coaches are off and running,” Thorpe said of the mad dash for game tape that engulfs each program upon hearing the draw.
It was a little confusing for Marmion last season. A televised glitch had the Cadets playing in both the North and South brackets in Class 6A.
“We had to dig out the computers and get on the IHSA website to see who we really were playing,” Thorpe said.
Computers are never far from the anxious eyes of Kaneland coach Tom Fedderly and his staff. No parents or players clutter up the proceedings when the coaches-only assembly hunkers down in Fedderly’s finished basement.
This highly organized meeting was a tradition Fedderly inherited from his predecessor, Joe Thorgesen. Typically Fedderly handles a couple radio interview requests after the pairings, then it’s on to contacting the opposing coach to set up the film exchange.
As for Knights players viewing habits, Fedderly doesn’t know specifics — other than it must be nice and quiet.
“I don’t ever really ask,” he said, “and they better be in the right spot.”
Years back on pairings night, Geneva coach Rob Wicinski brought back an old favorite from his childhood in Ottawa, Ill. He favors the soothing flavors of a Popsicle.
Players and coaches come to the high school Saturday night for pizza, library computer access to see if they can outwit the IHSA in selecting the Vikings’ opponent beforehand — and a Popsicle.
“A Popsicle is a feel-good food,” said Wicinski. “So we all have a Popsicle, rock back on our porch.”
The Popsicle also represents the end of the regular season.
“Then you finish your Popsicle and you’ve got to go back and finish mowing the grass,” he said. In other words, printing out statistics and reports on the opponent, hitting the phones, surfing the ’net.
“It’s a mad scramble Saturday night,” Wicinski said.
As usual, Aurora Christian coach Don Beebe incorporates community service and charity with the pairings.
Tradition holds that the Eagles practice in the morning of the final Saturday of the regular season, and after lunch the team heads to Wayside Cross Ministries in Aurora for several hours.
“We will spend Saturday there just doing work in whatever they need help with,” Beebe said. “This could be anything from cleaning, stocking shelves (to) construction work.”
After this spiritual sustenance, the team heads to Beebe’s house for the annual Pairings Party.
“Quite the day, and we really have a lot of fun on this day,” the coach said.
Batavia, which seeks its first 9-0 regular season in program history, has obviously had a huge year. So, this year, the Bulldogs are doing playoff pairings big.
Coach Dennis Piron is expecting more than 300 people attending its playoff pairings celebration at the school. It starts with a by-reservation dinner for interested players, parents, coaches and fans in the cafeteria accompanied by video and photo highlights. At 8 p.m. the crowd will move to either the auditorium or gymnasium for the pairings show.
“It’ll be like a playoff celebration from 7 to whenever,” Piron said.
A local television crew will be on hand to film player and coach interviews, commentary and reactions to the bracket drawings. Piron said a Comcast field crew has planned to also join the party to record live reactions on whom the Bulldogs will entertain in the first round and, possibly, beyond.
And then? Back to work.
“Honestly, the second it’s done we’re gone,” Piron said. “The coaches are out the door. I’ll be on the phone, but all the other coaches will be working on getting film.”
Catching up with ... Mallory Abel
St. Charles East senior Mallory Abel overcame a dreadful junior year of injury and illness to reclaim her place among the area’s top cross country runners. A member of coach Denise Hefferin’s third-place Class 3A team in 2008 as a freshman, Abel finished 29th individually and followed the next year with a 26th-place finish. She also ran the 3,200-meters at the 3A girls state track meet her first two years of high school. Then, an IT band injury which produced a “huge limp” and actually lowered her left hip knocked her out of her junior cross country season. Therapy got her back running indoors by February, but her outdoor track season was marred by a sinus infection and mononucleosis. Last weekend at the Upstate Eight Conference River Division cross country meet, however, she trailed only teammate Toree Scull to help St. Charles East to the title. The third of Steve and JoAnn Abel’s three running daughters, Mallory was born in Palatine and before seventh-grade moved to St. Charles. Committing to run for Northwestern University last year, Abel had also made inroads with Michigan State, Wisconsin, Illinois, Brown, Boston College, Iowa and Iowa State, where her parents attended.
Q: Were your parents a major influence in your running career?
A: Not really. They always said they wanted me to do an activity for every part of the year, spring, fall and winter. But they didn’t care what it was or what I did. Academics to them are first, so as long as the academics are going well they didn’t care what I did.
Q: Why did you choose Northwestern?
A: I visited there and I really just fell in love with the coach (April Likhite) and the (cross country) program, and then I fell in love with the school. I kind of wanted a mix of academics and athletics and it was like the perfect fit. I had a really rough year last year and the coach stuck with me through that year, and that just meant a lot to me.
Q: How did you injure that IT band?
A: I ran too many miles too quickly and I didn’t have a very stable core.
Q: You mentioned your therapy included hip strengtheners like a “bridge.” Any other yoga moves you worked on?
A: I went to a lot of hot yoga at a gym near my house, and did tree poses and chair poses. I’m not really sure of all their names, but I know there was a sun salutation pose, downward dog, upward dog, plank.
Q: How about flying locust? Just kidding. How did it feel to come back healthy?
A: It was a rough year and hard to come back from, but it made me just appreciate the sport so much more ... It was hard to go through that because all I wanted to do was run, but now that I have it again it just makes me like it that much more.
Q: How does it feel when you know you have won a race?
A: It’s kind of weird, because whenever I win I feel a lot less tired than when I don’t. I guess I’m just happy. I don’t focus on the pain. Running’s hard, and usually when I finish, and it’s a good finish, I feel so happy I forget about everything else. It’s just kind of a release, I think.
Q: While running on sidewalks do you step on the cracks or avoid them?
A: Avoid them. You don’t want to break your mom’s back.
Q: What’s your favorite school subject?
A: Probably social studies, or anything to do with history. I just think it’s interesting. I like that you don’t have to compute anything. I feel it’s just like a story instead of just sitting there, learning stuff and then trying to figure it out. It’s kind of straightforward.
Q: What are you going to dress up as for Halloween?
A: I’m still trying to decide that. It’s either a farmer, um, a rock star, a magician. Me and my friends are all going to be something together, so we’re having a little bit of a fight on that right now.
Q: What’s the biggest problem you see in the world today?
A: Probably the way people treat each other. I think that the world could be a lot kinder of a place.
Q: What’s been the greatest obstacle you’ve encountered in cross country?
A: One time in middle school I didn’t know the course and had to ask my competitor for directions. She kind of gave me this look and just pointed.
Q: What do you like about cross country?
A: A lot of people don’t think it’s a team sport, but it really is. And a lot of the girls are really close. You can always improve and continue to challenge yourself, and in other sports there’s only so far you can go, you have to have a talent. And in cross country I feel like anyone can succeed.
Prayers welcome
Wheaton Academy will not lack motivation as it concludes its 2011 football season Friday at Montini.
The host Broncos being two-time defending Class 5A state champions has next to nothing to do with it. Warriors coach Ben Wilson is facing a greater adversary.
On Monday at Loyola Hospital in Maywood the Warriors’ fifth-year head coach will have surgery to remove a 2.5-centimeter, benign (noncancerous) tumor at the base of his brain, between the optic nerves and pituitary gland. “That’s why they want to get it out. They don’t want it messing with those structures,” said Wilson, who was diagnosed with the tumor on Oct. 10 but said it could have been there all his life.
Wilson, who expects a full though long recovery, will recuperate at home for the rest of the semester before returning to school in January.
“It’s just really cool that we’re going to end the season together and have the surgery before the season’s over, and have that cloud hanging over everybody,” Wilson said.
He had been experiencing vision problems, and figured it was either stress-related or his eyes were simply failing. His wife, Leah, scheduled an optometrist appointment, which subsequently led to an MRI performed at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield on Oct. 7 — the night before Wheaton Academy hosted Marian Central.
After receiving the diagnosis, Wilson told his players of the situation before Wheaton Academy’s Oct. 11 morning chapel service; he announced it to the school as a whole shortly thereafter.
“We’ve run the gamut of emotions,” Wilson said.
“You don’t imagine your life turning in eight days like this,” he said. “But the team has been great. Wheaton Academy has been very supportive. We’re just looking at finishing our season well Friday against Montini, just having fun together.”
As of now the tumor itself is not life-threatening but could be if left alone, and could cause blindness due to pressure on the optic nerves. In the future Wilson said he will require MRI tests every three to six months to make sure there is no new growth.
“It’s definitely scary going into surgery like this, I’m not going to lie,” Wilson said. “But I really, truly do feel God’s peace going into this, knowing He’s in control. And He’s going to get us through.”
doberhelman@dailyherald.com