50 years of IHSA playoff football: How Walter Payton helped inspire the 1986 Buffalo Grove Bison

The kids from Longfellow Elementary School in Buffalo Grove spread throughout the neighborhood.

Some shot hoops in their driveway, others tossed baseballs or footballs in their yard. Eventually, a young voice rang out.

“He’s there!”

That was the call for the boys to jump on their bikes and ride across busy Arlington Heights Road into what is now the Terramere subdivision. Back then, though, it was barren land with room to roam.

It’s where Bears legend Walter Payton, at the peak of his greatness, chiseled his body running up what famously became known as his hill. The grueling workout had the kids awestruck.

“We’d try to run with him,” said Mark Sheedy, one of the youngsters. “He had 2-inch cleats on and wore a pack with a 45-pound weight in it. We’d get up a little bit and fall on our butts, and try it again and again. We couldn’t do it.”

In many ways, that was the birth of the 1986 Buffalo Grove Bison.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the IHSA football playoffs, the Daily Herald is looking back at some of the most memorable teams from our coverage area.

We’re starting with coach Grant Blaney’s dominant group of dreamers, the first Mid-Suburban League school to win a state football title. As a member of that senior class at Buffalo Grove High School, I admit it’s a selfish choice.

But it remains recognized as one of the greatest teams of that era. Their closest game of the postseason was a 13-0 second-round win over Palatine. They rolled 26-6 over Marist in the Class 6A final.

They were anchored by a core of Division I talent — linebacker Jim Wagner played at UCLA, quarterback Mark Benson at Northwestern, defensive lineman Jon Gustafsson at Illinois and Sheedy, a receiver, at Eastern Illinois. But spurred by immense depth, the Bison overcame years of coming up short by finally coming through.

Trying to keep pace with Payton on that hill was just the beginning for Benson, Sheedy, Wagner and other members of the 1986 team.

“We were fortunate because there was a foundation for success from youth football all the way up through high school,” Benson said. “We knew we had to put in the work. There was a tradition we had to live up to.”

For years, Buffalo Grove was known as a strong football program that couldn’t win the biggest games. The Bison’s first playoff appearance in 1978 ended with a 15-9 title game loss to St. Rita.

Then came East St. Louis, twice. The Bison lost to the Flyers in the 1984 quarterfinals and the 1985 semis. Wagner, brought up to varsity as a sophomore, remembers that frustrating stumbling block.

“That was the first time I got the snot knocked out of me,” said Wagner, who was neighbors with Benson and Sheedy but attended St. Mary’s in Buffalo Grove until high school.

“Our senior year, I think we were finally ready to match up with anyone physically.”

The 1986 Bison had more top-shelf talent than they’d ever had before, but it’s also what Blaney and his assistants did with that talent.

Buffalo Grove leaned on pass-oriented quarterbacks in previous years. But with Benson, who only started his senior season, Blaney shifted to an option offense featuring a ground game of Benson, running back Pat Milz and fullback Chris Rudolph.

They flashed just enough passing to keep opposing defenses honest.

“We had some size on our line, and they were smart guys,” Benson said. “That team had a great combination of chemistry and talent.”

The defense, meanwhile, suffocated opponents. Gustafsson, at 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds, was a massive force. A native of Sweden, he was finally picking up the nuances of the game after starting to play as a freshman.

Gustafsson’s ability to take on two or three offensive linemen allowed Wagner and others to get the tackles.

Blaney, who passed away in 2021, also instituted a two-platoon system to keep his players fresh. He could have pushed Wagner, Gustafsson and others into two-way play, but Blaney relied on the entire roster to ensure his best were ready for the playoff grind.

The Bison finished 14-0 as the lone unbeaten team in the state.

“Every game we had something to prove,” Sheedy said. “Coach Blaney did a great job getting it through our heads that anything’s possible and this was our year.”

The 1986 Buffalo Grove team thrived through cohesion, with many players remaining close friends to this day. One of the biggest fans of Benson’s son at Glenbard West, who plays on the sophomore football team, is Wagner, who attends as many games as his schedule allows.

The surrounding landscape may have transformed in the last 40 years — Payton’s hill is now a golf course — but some things never change.

“We all cared and wanted to win as a team,” Wagner said. “The stars aligned and things worked out for a reason.”