Sidelines: After 93 years, Marmion dives into girls athletics
Marmion Academy will be making history in the 2026-27 academic year.
A November 2024 decision by Abbot Joel Rippinger and the Marmion Abbey’s monastic community, for the first time since it opened as Marmion in 1933 the Aurora school is accepting female students.
With that, Marmion is offering girls athletics.
Fourth-year Marmion athletic director Joe Currie, who has long stalked the grounds as a coach in the Cadets football and basketball programs, and for three seasons was Marmion’s head basketball coach, was tasked with building a girls athletic program from scratch.
“It was time consuming, but it was well worth it,” said Currie, of Sugar Grove.
The goal was to enroll 30 girls in each of the freshman and sophomore classes this first year. On Tuesday Currie said the freshman class is nearly at that figure, and sophomores number between 20 and 25 students.
Adding to Marmion’s 13 boys sports, the girls will start out with seven — swimming, volleyball and cross country in the fall; basketball and wrestling in the winter; soccer and track and field in the spring.
“Once the decision was made we evaluated what we thought were the main sports we wanted to offer obviously based on only two classes,” Currie said.
“We hit the road running there and interviewed several coaches and came up with what we thought were the best selections, and we’re real excited about it,” he said.
Starting January 2025 with postings on social media and Marmion’s website, interviews were done in a multiple-stage process involving Currie, assistant athletic directors Paul Chabura and Pat Mitchell, Marmion president Anthony Tinerella, principal Joe Large, assistant principal Andy Damato, and Marmion’s monastic community.
For 2026-27 the Cadets will play on the junior varsity level in the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference — except for basketball. Coach Dan Murray, a veteran whose stops have included IC Catholic and Lisle, wanted to jump right into varsity action.
It’s also possible, Currie said, that if a student shows an interest in a sport like golf the school could arrange for them to compete as an individual. Varsity opportunities may be available for individuals in sports such as wrestling and swimming.
“On the agenda,” Currie said, is flag football, the fastest-growing girls high school sport followed by wrestling. Right now, he said, the numbers don’t support it.
The school also is looking to eventually add tennis, golf, lacrosse and softball, which would require a field it presently doesn’t have.
Interviews still are being held for girls track, but in addition to Murray, coaches in the fold include Glenn Brown (swimming), Megan Wille (volleyball), Andrew Lifka (cross country), Alexis Gomez (wrestling) and Anne Iwinski (soccer).
“It’s a great opportunity, that’s what intrigued them. They have a great opportunity to start something from the very beginning and form it the way they want versus inheriting a program and making change that way,” Currie said.
“It’s been fun watching the coaches through their summer stuff and seeing how they’re progressing, and watching the young ladies become a community. They’re bonding, it’s exciting to see.”
To give the girls their own space, the school transformed the second level behind the field house stage into five girls locker rooms and changing rooms, plus an athletic training office, Currie said. The first-level boys locker rooms have been updated, too.
Team schedules were the hardest part of the whole deal, he said, but after meeting with coaches “we were able to fill up everything they wanted,” Currie said.
Marmion and Currie now joins every other coed school that has to devise how to share finite facilities. In this historic year and beyond, that’ll work itself out.
Like Currie said, building the girls program has been a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
“The way we’ve strategically done it,” he said, “I think it’ll allow us to be that much more successful as we go.”
The fisher kings
I have a next-door neighbor who is an ace high school fisherman.
Perhaps he and others out there are potential nominees to be a Bassmaster High School All-American.
Kaneland High School graduate Carter Pjesky was selected to the 2025 team, one of 12 out of about 200 nationwide applicants. A key probably was competing in several Bassmaster tournaments, some of them with St. Charles North graduate J.D. McBroom.
St. Charles North placed 10th at the 2026 IHSA bass fishing tournament and was runner-up in 2025. Maybe they’ve got someone.
Anglers must be rising sophomores through seniors with a minimum grade-point average of 2.5, nominated by a parent, coach, teacher or school official. Deadline is Sept. 16. Details are at bassmaster.com.
Cast away.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com