For Sheetz, history comes one score at a time

Batavia High School's football season is history -- in more ways than one.

The Bulldogs' ouster from the state playoffs last week in East St. Louis pulled down the curtain on this season. But a local researcher -- Batavia public library director George Scheetz -- is in the process of putting Batavia football in a historical perspective.

Last summer, Scheetz launched a sizable undertaking that would take him back more than 100 years through Batavia history. His goal? To unearth, list and publish every high school football game played by Batavia since 1904, when it all began.

Initially, the intent was to chronicle the history of the Batavia-Geneva rivalry, but it's since taken on a larger life.

"My goal is to find the score of every game, when it was played, who it was played against, and where," Scheetz said.

The whole endeavor began shortly after he became director in late 2004. Upon seeing a list of scores, he noticed large gaps where information wasn't available and "my research instincts were intrigued," he said. After huddling with Batavia assistant coach Dennis Piron -- who had already begun accumulating information on his own -- Scheetz decided to start work on "The Record Book."

And so began a fascinating yet often frustrating journey through ancient yearbooks, microfilm and yellowed newspaper clips.

While Batavia's first "official" football game wasn't played until 1913, Scheetz found football references dating to 1904. But those early years -- until the late 1920s anyway -- are a hit-and-miss proposition.

"I have a sneaking suspicion that an absolute, complete list of all the scores will be impossible because of a lack of records," Scheetz said. "But I've found some amazing stuff."

Combing through reams of microfilm -- page by page by page -- has revealed a lot more than football scores. Being a researcher, Scheetz's natural curiosity has actually slowed his progress with all the compelling bits of local history he comes across.

"If I could put blinders on and focus only on finding football scores, this would go a lot quicker," Scheetz said. "But there's some fascinating history."

Scheetz also enjoyed seeing the evolution of newspapers. Early on, there were no sports sections. "So you never knew where -- or if -- you might find the football score," Scheetz said. "Sometimes they'd announce a football game coming up, but never print the score after it was played.

"You never know where to look. Somtimes I'd find the football information in a personal column focused on hometown news. It would read something like "The Smith family welcomed their third son, John Nelson traveled to the World Fair last week and Batavia High School beat Naperville 32-7 in football.' "

Being the resourceful type, Scheetz looked at opponents Batavia played regularly during the early years -- such as Sycamore, Rochelle, Wheaton and Dundee -- and plans to examine their yearbooks and local papers for records.

A few other, notable findings:

• Press coverage increased noticeably in 1921, when the Little Seven Conference was formed. "Once the local schools were grouped in a conference, the papers started taking notice," Scheetz said.

• Batavia and St. Charles (now St. Charles East) actually have a longer history than Batavia-Geneva. St. Charles played in the Little Seven for years before joining the Upstate Eight in the 1960s, and the schools were annual rivals until then.

• "Bulldogs" became a nickname circa 1945. Newspapers had referred to Batavia's team as "Crimson," "Crimson and Gold" and "Crimson tide" (lower case T), until then. "Vikings" (Geneva) and "Saints" (St. Charles) appeared just before then, leading Scheetz to conclude "this was the time the schools got serious about nicknames."

• Sycamore has yearbooks dating to 1906, with records of a Sycamore-Batavia game in the 1910 season.

• The earliest reference to Batavia basketball is 1904, meaning last year's centennial celebration may have been two years late. "It certainly pushes the history back a few years," Scheetz said.

As the journeys into yesteryear continue, Scheetz is looking ahead as well. Beyond documents and records, he's searching for real-life connections.

"I'm looking for older graduates of Batavia High School, people in their 80s now, to see what their recollections are and tap their memories," Scheetz said. "You never know where you might find a treasure trove of information.

"It would be interesting to find someone who kept a scrapbook from school years long ago with scores, pictures, etc. You just know stuff like that exists. The trick is finding it."

It's all a labor of love, he insists.

"Research is a hobby to me," Scheetz said, "and this kind of information is worth sharing."

Scheetz can be reached at Batavia Public Library at (630) 879-1393.