Football - Part 2b

Consisting of some of the best athletes in the area, our Falcons football team went nearly undefeated during the regular season. Unfortunately after several rounds of playoffs our wild ride ended against Elgin, a few game short of our goal of a national title trip to Florida. Nevertheless nearly all our members went on to succeed on the high school, and even collegiate level. For example:

QB Erik Benz went on to star as a middle linebacker for Lane Tech High School and later for Northern Illinois University.
FB Josh Piazza earned a scholarship to play football and baseball for Notre Dame High School, and later played baseball at Valparaiso University.
RB Vic Shroeder went on to be a star running back for Maine West High School as well as earn State titles in Track and Field.
and RB Neil Sherlock went on to star for Maine South High School, setting several school records, before earning All-State honors in both Football and Track and Field. He also later went on to play CB for Harvard.

Despite these successes, what I cherish are the friendships formed and memories shared. Besides the general friendships I formed with the rest of the team, I was also fortunate to be reintroduced to an old friend for the first time since our earliest years of little league baseball. Indeed our current close friendship can be traced directly back to this shared experience. As fellow rookies, BD and I were able to view events through similar perspectives. Besides the great plays and vicious hits, we both remember the sights and sounds and smells of our first year of football.

We remember listening to Coach Piazza, the first of many short and stocky football coaches I would have who would berate us for the most basic and obscure of faults. Several times, when his face would turn a dark crimson, we would wonder whether our mistakes would finally give him the heart attack we all expected would occur.

We remember chanting our team's song (identical to the one in "Remember the Titans", except for the dancing) as we ran around and onto the field. Besides sending chills into the opposition, the site of several dozen children calling for blood had to make both sides' parents wonder what life lessons our coaches were teaching us.

We remember watching our star running back, after being tackled awkwardly and dislocating his shoulder, have his shoulder literally "popped" back into place by one of our coaches.

We remember feeling every hit we made and took, perhaps none more so than the one we received before every game from our Coach Benz. As we all lined up to sing the National Anthem before the game, Coach Benz would walk down the line head-butting each of us - forehead to helmet. In addition to brain damage, this triggered an explosion of excitement that did not wane until the game was over.

Lastly, we remember choking back tears when we our season ended short of our goal. We did not reach the national championship, but we did establish an expectation of success that would help us all during the next step in our football lives. While some of us would play for other rival schools in the area, most would form the nucleus of the next freshman class of Hawks.