Metea Valley shaping up

The slab for the pool bleachers has been poured...

The drain and concrete curb have been installed around the future eight-lane track...

The softball and baseball dugouts are going up...

Progress is rapid at the Eola Road construction site that will open in August as Metea Valley High School, the third high school in Indian Prairie School District 204.

"The facility looks great," said Metea athletic director Tom Schweer, in his last weeks at Waubonsie Valley. "It's really going to be a spectacular facility from top to bottom, from academics to athletics to co-curricular activities."

This week the final coaching position was handled, James Milkert slated to come from Oswego East to coach girls volleyball.

Schweer, principal Jim Schmid and other administrators will begin their residency on Aug. 1, the initial 1,200 students shortly thereafter. Yet Metea is a two-phase installation.

Some facilities like the competition gym, fitness areas and football field will be ready; others such as the pool and tennis courts won't until at least February 2010.

"I think we'll be in pretty good shape," said Schmid, who was a hall of fame baseball coach at Waubonsie Valley. "Is it optimal? Not necessarily. But I think it'll be ready pretty quickly."

The football field will be laid with synthetic turf.

"I feel very fortunate that we're the initial school in (District) 204 to have that," Schmid said of the turf. "It's very attractive and it'll play very fast."

Metea won't compete in varsity team sports until 2010-11 but will have a full nine-game sophomore football schedule. The Mustangs will host five Friday night games, including the biggie against Neuqua Valley.

Metea is equipped with a pool but won't have a field house, mirroring the other two 204 high schools. Schweer called Metea's athletic facilities "second to none" but said a main consideration was consistency.

"I think District 204 did a nice job of wanting to have some equity between all three of the schools, and they did that," Schweer said.

"Certainly we're a little bit behind as far as grass and things like that, but when it matures it'll be a wonderful sports complex ... and the academic facilities are truly spectacular," he said. "I think you have to truly walk the building to get a sense of how neat it is."

Tops in shutouts

Waubonsie Valley has a new state record holder.

In girls soccer the Warriors' 9-0 shellacking of Streamwood on Tuesday gave goalkeeper Claire Hanold the Illinois High School Association record for shutouts in a career, with 71. Last Friday's 7-0 throttling of Larkin pulled Hanold even with Champaign Centennial's Brook Wikgren.

A senior co-captain on Waubonsie's 14-3 squad, Hanold entered 2009 with 64 shutouts. A 2008 all-state pick from the No. 1 team in the country and a two-time all-sectional keeper, she enters Thursday's game at St. Charles East having allowed a minuscule 33 goals in 100 games.

With a mission

Sean Norris' football career at Wheaton College didn't end with the Thunder's Division III semifinal loss to Mt. Union last December.

The former all-area Wheaton North quarterback, who as a junior set Thunder records for total offense and touchdown passes in 2008, remains on a mission.

And that's his cup of tea.

For a second straight year, in March Norris joined 70 football players on a 10-day missionary trip to three overseas destinations. Headed by Wheaton College defensive line coach Jeff Peltz and former coach Gary LaVanchy, in 10 years the Wheaton Football Ministry Partnerships has sent more than 600 individuals to serve in Venezuela, Romania, Senegal, Mauritania, Botswana, Guinea and South Africa.

Norris - who also went to Czechoslovakia his senior year in high school with a church youth group - visited South Africa this year after traveling in 2008 to Senegal.

Norris' group was assigned to work at an orphanage established by Wheaton College football alumnus J.D. Borgman. The players built a playground and then, naturally, played with the kids.

"We go into these trips with a servant's heart," Norris said. "We really take a humble approach and say we want to get to know these people. We want to respect them every way we can, and we have built some good relationships."

During last year's trip a child in Mauritania happily showed the foreigners a picture they'd taken of him the year before. Moments like that can last longer than a concrete and metal playground, Norris said.

Still, there was that job to be done. Peltz hammered away right next to players like Wheaton North products Tom Aagaard and Nick Theobold, Wheaton Warrenville South's Mike Berttucci and Geneva's Alex Pokorny.

"A lot of times football players are known for being big and tough," Norris said. "But these trips give us a good understanding of what God is doing in the rest of the world, and it's really powerful."

doberhelman@dailyherald.com