Team Within a Team: How Elk Grove High School is preparing for the season opener

Pressure, Elk Grove High School athletic director Kirk Macnider said, can either burst pipes or make diamonds.

Obviously the goal is the latter, even in one of the first big events on the athletic calendar — the football home opener.

Elk Grove hosts Maine West at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Before the Grenadiers’ Bart Mazur kicks off or Maurion Smith, Ryan Tanner or Santiago Myles returns the kickoff, pressure is on to check multiple boxes.

“There’s a lot a facets that go into a home opener,” said Macnider, Elk Grove’s first full-time athletic director, in his fourth year. He’s also the Mid-Suburban League’s football chair.

Preparations consist of the obvious — contacting the fire and police departments to secure ambulance and enforcement coverage — to things that would become obvious only if botched.

“If the American flag is not perfect that’s something that’s not acceptable,” Macnider said.

No fraying allowed, said Macnider, who also purchased two new flags that indicate wind direction.

Well before the fans start filing in to the stadium, which holds up to 4,000 people, Macnider will have assigned work orders to clean restrooms and fix any bugs in the sound system so public address announcer Ken Grams sounds like he’s in midseason form.

The all-time leader in victories by an Illinois high school softball coach, Grams also has announced every Elk Grove home football game since the school opened in 1966, Macnider said.

The athletic director heads a chain of command that includes up to 30 staff members, including teachers and coaches of other sports, who will manage the visiting team, work on the sideline chain gang or as venue security, operate the scoreboard and sell tickets.

It’s not the most exciting thing, like a lot of things on the checklist, but Macnider has to figure out which gates need to be opened and which remain closed.

The stadium lights must be programmed to go on and off at appropriate times, the concession stand crew has to be organized. Physical education instructors who use the stadium field for their classes help clear out any PE gear.

“As athletic director the entire event is mine to oversee, but I also really love to be part of the athletic experience. Anytime we host I spend a lot of time with the team and the coaches,” said Macnider, who works with the booster club to make sure each of the school’s approximately 700 athletes gets a new “Elk Grove Family” T-shirt to start the school year.

“I view my role as one to make sure the coaches have what they need to support the kids, and I want them to be able to coach fully, so then I try to take as much off their plate as possible so they can just do their thing,” he said.

“It’s a full operation mapped out and timed and with job operations. It’s a team effort, for sure. My athletic assistant, Shannon Konopasek, we couldn’t do it without her, too.”

Macnider’s “army of three” in the athletic department includes Grenadiers head football coach Danny O’Donnell. He’s the assistant athletic director, so he’s in on these preparations.

By now he’s made sure the end zone cameras are ready, and the headsets coaches use to communicate with each other do the job.

“That’s the last thing you need on a Friday night, is finding out, ‘Uh-oh, it’s not working,’” he said.

Through all the weight lifting, the 7-on-7 competitions, those first days of practice when all 90 players in Elk Grove’s program worked together as a unit, now capped by this final week of film review and coaches’ feedback, O’Donnell’s goal is to open the season under the acronym, PRIDE.

Personal responsibility and daily effort, O’Donnell said.

As assistant athletic director, O’Donnell also is concerned about the 31 other sports, boys and girls, Elk Grove offers.

“Yes, the big night is the Friday night lights, but we’re kind of shifting the mindset that all sports matter here,” he said.

“Any time you have a season you have the opportunity for memories of a lifetime. It’s an unbelievable experience for these kids,” O’Donnell said.

“As the leader of the program, I just want to provide something that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”