Is it wrong for a high school football player to wear pink?
Regardless of that incapacitating flu bug, let's hope the St. Charles North-St. Charles East football game comes off just to see big, strong football players dressed in pink to recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
St. Charles East coach Mike Fields said his Saints will be sporting a pink ribbon decal on the back of their helmets, and a pink stripe down the middle. That's certainly better than a yellow stripe.
"I've been calling vendors for pink socks, but no luck," said Fields, who vowed to be better prepared for the pink ensemble next season. (Kaneland wore pink socks in last week's game against Geneva, a fabulous look for the otherwise black-clad Knights.)
St. Charles North will take the field, whenever and wherever it may be, wearing light pink jerseys adorned by black numerals and trim.
North Stars coach Mark Gould has seen the uniform mock-up, and states, "They're pink, believe me." He'll distribute the jerseys today.
Some St. Charles North players have already taken to wearing pink wristbands, said Gould, who may go that unobtrusive route rather than wear a pink jersey, sport jacket or cummerbund.
"I guess I'm too old school," he said. "But it's for a good cause."
Fields, in his first season at St. Charles East after a decade at Geneva, sees this crosstown classic more as a respectful rivalry than the Hatfield-McCoy feud that is Batavia-Geneva. He sees room for pink attire on the football field.
"It's bigger than football games, and we need to realize that," he said.
Blazing Blackhawks
Every year, West Aurora soccer coach Joe Sustersic tells his team he's going to the state finals. He tells his players they can join him if they'd wish.
"'We want to go to the games, not just watch them,'" they replied this year. Indeed, the Blackhawks are putting their money where their goalmouth is.
True, West Aurora's 2-1 playoff win over Batavia on Tuesday meant only that the fifth-seeded Blackhawks would meet No. 4 seed Naperville Central for the Class 3A Plainfield North regional final on Saturday - a week away next weekend's final four at North Central College.
But people have taken notice of the Blackhawks' record of 18 wins, 3 losses and 2 ties, which far surpasses the 31-year program's prior high-water mark of 15-10-1 in 2002, Sustersic's second season there.
Sustersic said that after West Aurora beat Plainfield South on Oct. 10 to claim the program record, various teachers said they'd congratulated senior captain Victor Alfaro on the team's success.
"I'm surprised you even know who I am," Sustersic told them.
There was the football player dismayed the Blackhawks lost to Naperville North in a match that attracted more than 200 fans - "and not just Naperville North fans," Sustersic said.
"I mean, a football player wondering what the soccer team did?" Sustersic asked rhetorically, incredulously.
The coach said this is the best boys soccer team West Aurora's had. Led by returning all-DuPage Valley Conference selections Alfaro, Henry Perez and Mario Alvarez - who scored the game-winner against Batavia - plus Loren Galloway, Josue Martinez, Jesse Ortiz, Bennie Ness, Adrian Aceves and 13-shutout keeper Abel Diaz, Sustersic compared this group favorably to the 2001 and 2002 squads that won regional titles.
Sustersic, a social studies teacher who came to West Aurora after eight seasons at Holy Cross, said the 2002 team may have fielded better individuals, such as Los Angeles Galaxy draft pick Quavas Kirk, but this 2009 squad is better overall.
"They've played better as a unit, they know how to cover for each other, they cover for each other on and off the field," Sustersic said.
"They have no problems giving constructive criticism to each other. Sometimes it gets out of control, but it's a boys-will-be-boys kind of thing. It's nothing negative, but they know how to make each other get better - and at the same time they know that if they don't perform, one of their peers will replace them in the starting lineup or replace them on the field."
Finishing third in the DuPage Valley Conference behind Naperville North and Naperville Central, West Aurora beat the teams it had to beat. For the Blackhawks to add to their record-setting ways and actually join Sustersic at the finals, they'll have to up the ante starting Saturday.
"We don't have a showcase victory," Sustersic said before the regional started, "but I'm hoping to do that."
Blackhawk blast from the past
Speaking of West Aurora athletes, on Oct. 17 Illinois State University inducted five graduates into its Athletics Hall of Fame, and one of them was 1968 graduate Chris Quigley.
He was a three-year letter-winner with the Redbirds between 1969-72, and competed in Greco-Roman wrestling in the 1972 Olympic Trials.
As well as winning the United States Federation World Freestyle Tournament in 1970, 1972 and 1974, Quigley competed at three NCAA National Championships. His second-place finish in 1972 is Illinois State's highest national finish.
College achievers
The College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin has been busy awarding player-of-the-week honors to Kane County graduates.
Geneva graduate Emily Hinchman, a freshman soccer forward at Illinois Wesleyan, took home an award in September, and Augustana's Caitlin Winkelman, a sophomore out of St. Charles North, was just named this week. Last week, Elmhurst College's Brian McMahon, a St. Francis graduate out of St. Charles, won a CCIW soccer award with 3 goals and an assist in two road victories.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com