I heard that Thorton seniors this year had 5 kids come out for football when they were freshmen. Heard people from someone that asked Dontrell Sr. why he was sending his kid somewhere else for school and not having him play for him, he said something along the lines of why would I want him playing for a school that can only get 5 kids to play football?
Which programs overachieve? Who are sleeping giants?
- Thread starter BobbyTheBuffoon
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Heard from a guy who knows a guy…..
I don’t buy that. Every dad would love to coach their kid. There must be a different reasoning here.
Thornton was a perennial playoff contender for the past 30 years.
Basketball is their thing in Harvey.
Ask Lou Boudreau...
Pretty sure both Dontrell and Sam (cousins I believe) played for the Harvey Colts. Which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but is an indication. H-F accumulated a lot of local talent, I'm sure.
Ivlow's 2nd son went to Bolingbrook.
That is really quite shocking. The HC is not even bought into his program. How can the admin allow him to continue as the coach?
“If the HC doesn’t even send his kid to play there, why should I send my kid to play there?”
I agree the optics weren't good and he has since resigned as TT head coach. Good deal for Marist though, they get a dynamic player who was being hyped since the age of 8. Thornton on the other hand gets the 1550 kids that don't want to play football and don't even get the two best players in their boundary.
He lasted another year, maybe two, but probably should have resigned the moment he sent his kid to Marist. You can not get away with being the head coach of sport and sending your kid to different school for the same sport if you live in that district. No one is going to buy in.
It also doesn't usually work to well if you coach another sport and send your kids private while living in the same district. Word gets around quick.
What still doesn’t add up is Thornton was decent when the kid would have been there. The dads last year as HC they were 8-3 and beat a good program in Pekin in round one. Lost to Naz and JJ McCarthy in round 2. This would have been the kids sophomore year.
Dad was 28-20 as HC at Thornton.
Odd
Part of me wonders if the looming competition between son and relative for QB spot played a role.
Sandburg may be in the "sleeping giant" category, but Lockport and LWE may have something to say about their full awakening. Also, they may not be able to sneak up on anybody next fall as coaches and teams will be sure to summon their A-games going forward.
The Thornton switch from the SWSC to the Southland 3 seasons ago has not really produced anything positive for them in FB. Crete-Monee and Kankakee look untouchable for the Wildcats under current conditions at the Harvey school and the combined Rich Township program could also be tough to overcome should they clear the growing pains of the last 2 seasons complicated by COVID interruptions experienced with the Raptors this past fall. T-wood made the playoffs from the Southland, but Bloom and T-ridge continue to struggle mightily at the back of the league with Thornton.
Lockport has plenty of talent in program and now has the coaching. They will be very good moving forward. This year was a special group but they will compete year in year out with LWE moving forward, IMO.
The Thornton talk is interesting. Bill Mosel was one of the most respected coaches around. How did he get it done? His players loved him.
Times change the area was much more stable at the time back then. When kids are worried about meals and other outside factors football slides down the priority list. TT was really great program in the ‘90s sad to see where they are today.
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They were an 8-3 playoff team just a couple years ago and got beat by a dominate team in the playoffs. Appears the program was doing just fine.
I don’t know the program at all other than they’ve had some really great players over the years but it appears the previous coach really let the program down.
At the end of the Bill Mosel & Ron Anderson (DC) era at Thornton, some nail-biting games occurred against George Czart's LWN teams. A couple epic battles, too, against LWC going back several years. Bill's Blue Island moxie played well even in Harvey for a long time.
