Feeder programs: Instilling a community bond, and football success, at Maine South

Last Saturday in Yorkville, a top-level Park Ridge Falcons team lost a Bill George Youth Football League game to Oswego, 36-0.

The Falcons remained undaunted.

“At the end of the game they were talking about how they’re going to become state champions in 2029, and CSL (Central Suburban League) South champs in 2026,” said Rob Leach, Park Ridge Football and Cheer board director and treasurer.

“After a humiliating loss they still look at it that way,” Leach said. “And that’s us coaching them that way.”

It’s also due to a brotherly bond, and a connection with the Maine South High School program the Falcons feed into. The success of coach Dave Inserra’s Hawks — six state titles, 10 title-game appearances — shows that postgame talk was not bluster.

“I’ve been playing with these guys ever since I started,” said Hawks senior cornerback Filip Kalat. “Growing with these guys together and forming all these friendships and such just makes us such a better team. That’s what led us to so much success in high school.”

Not just the boys. Maine South flag football players such as quarterback Aribella Spandiary, who threw 3 touchdown passes and ran for a touchdown in the Hawks’ 26-6 win over Whitney Young in the Oct. 18 state championship, came out of this program.

She’s too old to have played in Park Ridge Football and Cheer’s branch devoted solely to girls flag football, which began in 2024 and has 500 players in third- through eighth-grade.

Spandiary would have played in the coed flag program, which currently numbers about 1,800 players among the 3,150 boys and girls overall, as young as 4 years old. The tackle program starts at 8-under, typically third grade, though players can choose to remain in flag throughout.

“They’ve always asked me, ‘What do you think about the flag?’ And I said, ‘Hey, if it’s football, it’s football, and that’s a good thing,’” said Inserra, a 1985 Maine South graduate coached in Park Ridge Football by his own father, Bob, among others.

Dave Inserra has a son, also Bob, coaching in the system. A younger son, Ben, plays on a seventh-grade tackle team.

“A phenomenal experience, and it’s not always about winning,” said Dave Inserra, though the program owns four national titles. “Sometimes they may not win, but it’s about getting better, staying together, learning the game.”

All-conference Maine South senior lineman Derek Koziol agreed.

“It was fun. We weren’t very good,” he said, statements rarely heard together.

“Mentality’s a big part, but I would say the fundamentals are huge,” said Koziol, a three-year starter. “Knowing where to put your hands, your feet. I think I’m so good because of the fundamentals we learned when we were younger, and that just helped me have success now.”

Many of the Maine South players also have played for the Park Ridge Hawks program, which fields competitive travel teams at the fifth- through eighth-grade levels. Players for both the Falcons and Hawks then enter the high school program.

A key to their success is continuity. Leaders in Park Ridge Football and Cheer such as Jim Toulon and Garry Abezetian have been involved for decades, and their fathers before that. The program was founded in 1967 as Mighty Mite Youth Sports and is an affiliate of Park Ridge Park District.

In 2019 USA Football flew Inserra and Leach to Orlando, Fla., to instruct some 350 coaches on community-based football. The tagline: “Building a bond between youth leagues and the high school programs.”

In the offseason, Inserra and his staff hold a series of clinics for Falcons coaches.

“It’s not X’s and O’s, it’s more skill,” Inserra said. “Tackling, blocking, catching drills, running drills, just things to teach lessons, skills to the players.”

Younger bodies can’t typically physically execute the Maine South spread offense, so that instruction starts after fourth grade.

“A lot of our plays we ran in the feeder program were translating over to what they run (at Maine South),” said another all-conference player, senior linebacker Gavin Smith.

“It was good getting a good knowledge of that before we got to high school. It definitely helped us advance and be better than some of the programs in our area,” he said.

While creating depth across positions and a love for the game, the Falcons feeder program builds lasting bonds between players and with coaches.

“I feel like I learned a lot of personal things with Coach Inserra,” said senior free safety Fintan Lennon, who started in Falcons flag football in kindergarten and moved to tackle in sixth grade.

“I feel like he’s helped me be a better person,” Lennon said. “My social life is a lot better here. He just makes football relate to your personal life.”

Because it is personal.

“The sense of pride in Park Ridge, the sense of pride at Maine South,” Inserra said, “it’s really special, and that’s been my goal.”