What school closed,consolidated,dropped football do you miss the most? Tell me about them
- Thread starter crazylegs777
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I wish I could like this but i don't. Saturday afternoons at LFA,NSCD,Mooseheart watching football was a treat each year. And hit up a nice restaurant afterwards
Holy Cross or Guerin...driving past and seeing apartments/condos being built where it used to stand hurts.
I loved watching games there!!! It hurts me too. Super nice peopleHoly Cross c/o 2001 here. It sucks not being able to follow your alma mater on here (but live in Park Ridge so following Maine South isn’t a bad consolation prize).
Haven’t seen the new development but saw when it was all torn down and hard not to be sad and reminisce on all the good times, all the baseball and football games, etc.
My final years as a student were the Garrett Wolfe years so was nice to have some success for sure.
Haven’t seen the new development but saw when it was all torn down and hard not to be sad and reminisce on all the good times, all the baseball and football games, etc.
My final years as a student were the Garrett Wolfe years so was nice to have some success for sure.
@FormerCrusaderNowHawk we just missed overlapping by a year. My frosh year was 01-02 which was Garrett's Sr year. I remember it being a bit of a letdown after the 11-2 season in 2000 since we lost to Riverside-Brookfield in Rd 1 like 64-0 or something.
Gordon Tech Rams. I know they are DePaul but let’s be honest it’s not the old GT! I was a fan of the Orange uniforms too, old school Tampa Bay like
Weber and Gordon werer run by the same mediocre order of priests. Some decades ago, they told Weber alums that the school needed serious funding to stay viable. A large group of them, iincluding lawyers, MDs, and a couplr TV people formed a committee and drafted a signifiiicant strategy. The priests decided to close Weber anyway. They felt that Gorddon Tech was the place for investment. The alums were furious and still are today. Normally, I respect priests, but these guys were blockheads,
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Losing Morgan Park Academy, Weber, Hales, Quigley South and North, Luther North and South all hurt the Chicago private school scene.
years ago there was also a high school (located very close to Quigley South) named Little Flower. I would be very surprised if anyone else remembers it. My Alma Mater, St. Francis DeSales use to play them every year. So sad, many privates gone. Alot of the all girls schools also.
MPA is still open? but don't know why they dropped football. Mendel/St.Martin De Porres gone too. SFDS kept trying to revive football but the school is hanging by a thread
They were part of the Private School League at one point
When did MPA stop playing football? I didn't know they once fielded a team. The school is still open right?
Great info! I have a green East Kingsman shirt I purchased at the JT Homecoming game back in the late 90s that the East Alumni Association was selling. I used to work with a guy who played both football and basketball at East in the early 70s and he said because the areas East drew students from was technically in unincorporated Joliet Township as well as neighboring Elwood to the south, there was not a very warm Community relationship with District rivals Central and West who were both solidly within Joliet proper. I'm not that familiar with the history of the area so I couldn't say
In the 1982 football sesson which was the Kingsman's last I eas scouting fir Morton West and I went to scout Downers Grove South who was hosting Joliet East at DGS on a Saturday. I always sat on the visitor's side because tgere was always more room. Maybe 20 or 30 people showed up to watch East
Tge teams came out and South had about 45-50 players. . East comes out and it was maybe 20 players.. so I thought well these players are on the field the others must be coming...nope..a guy that sitting near me and I asked where are the other players? He didn't even turn to look at me and said, "This is the team..there are no nore players" He went in to inform me that the school was closing at the end of the year. Downers won the game by a large margin
When Joliet Township decided to split back into Central and West again it was ibvious Central would at sone point need a field of their own. There was the suggestion that they teyy to renovate the old East stadium that at the time was still on the property that Job Corps owned but that idea was quickly dismissed by the school board and eventually the District built a nice field for the Steelmen near the Central Campus.
The Marseilles Panthers out in LaSalle County between Seneca and Ottawa off Rt 6 . A river town. When I was attending Benedictine University which at the time was known as Illinois Benedictine Colkege in Lisle I often went and watched High School football games on Saturday involving Benet Academy and Lisle High which played their home games at Lisle Junior High School. One Saturday in '83 I went over and watch the Lisle Lions play at home vs the Marseilles Panthers. This was a non conference game although the two were once both in the old Northeast Conference but,right around 1980 Marseilles left to charter the newly formed Interstate 8 Conference along with Coal City, Dwight, Plano, Seneca, Wilmington, and Yorkville. So I was talking with a guy from Marseilles and he said you gotta come out to Marseilles next werk and see us play Seneca, it's a huge rivalry. I did (It seemed like it was a hundred miles away) and as I passed through the town of Seneca there were GO SENECA! signs and GO IRISH..BEAT THE RIVER RATS!
The place was a mob scene. I had to park on a nearby neighborhood street and walk to the school. It was a beautiful sunny day and a great game that Seneca won 12-6. I tried to follow Marseilles a little bit from there but at the time all there were was newspapers and you really never heard about them because they were so far out west.
In the late 80s I made a trip back to Marseilles to see the Panthers play the Dwight Trojans and they had a really good team that particular season that made the playoffs and they beat Dwight handily.
By I believe 1990 the school was clised and Marseilles students now attend Ottawa Twp.
I liked their black and red colors. At home they wore all black uniforms with the red trim. One summer a while back my wife and I spent the weekend out by Starved Rock park and we were staying in Ottawa. One of the mornings we went to have breakfast at a restaurant in Ottawa and there was this little gift shop so we went in and they had different kinds of t-shirts and things and what caught my eye but a t-shirt that said Marseilles Panthers that had a Panther head logo on the front... So... I bought it to add to my collection of almost a hundred different high school t-shirts...which was always a tradition of mine that when I went to a particular high school I always tried to find some kind of shirt to have.
The school building is now an elementary/middle school. They have a annual holiday high school basketball Christmas tournament there involving some small school basketball programs.
The place was a mob scene. I had to park on a nearby neighborhood street and walk to the school. It was a beautiful sunny day and a great game that Seneca won 12-6. I tried to follow Marseilles a little bit from there but at the time all there were was newspapers and you really never heard about them because they were so far out west.
In the late 80s I made a trip back to Marseilles to see the Panthers play the Dwight Trojans and they had a really good team that particular season that made the playoffs and they beat Dwight handily.
By I believe 1990 the school was clised and Marseilles students now attend Ottawa Twp.
I liked their black and red colors. At home they wore all black uniforms with the red trim. One summer a while back my wife and I spent the weekend out by Starved Rock park and we were staying in Ottawa. One of the mornings we went to have breakfast at a restaurant in Ottawa and there was this little gift shop so we went in and they had different kinds of t-shirts and things and what caught my eye but a t-shirt that said Marseilles Panthers that had a Panther head logo on the front... So... I bought it to add to my collection of almost a hundred different high school t-shirts...which was always a tradition of mine that when I went to a particular high school I always tried to find some kind of shirt to have.
The school building is now an elementary/middle school. They have a annual holiday high school basketball Christmas tournament there involving some small school basketball programs.
How about the Raiders of Kankakee Eastridge just off of I-57? They closed and consolidated with Kankakee Westview in 1983 after about 10 years in the South Division of SICA. They had Friday night football years ahead of many of the other SICA schools.
Great helmets with Indian on horseback with a spear in his hand & horse in full gallop!!! Loved them & Westview. When Eastridge won a big E would light up on top of their school. One Friday Eastridge beat Westview. When they came to school on Monday the E was in pieces on the ground. So a few weeks later Westview won and the W was lit up on top of Westview. When they got to school Monday the W was turned to look like an E
Eastridge also had a Indian mascot with a flaming arrow on horseback that would plant the arrow in the end zone after a touchdown
I remember reading when East first opened they were getting kids from some part of Grundy County. East was never supposed to get a school. They raised hell when West was getting one so they ended up getting a High School too. Sica didn't want to take the Joliet Schools but when Eastridge & Westview in Kankakee were going to go back to one they took the Joliets. Sica made West & Central schedules for them in 82 & didn't want them to play East which was closing. East I have the program had maybe 30 players or so. They originally were supposed to play Argo,Joliet West,Joliet Central,Ottawa & Kankakee Westview along with Gage Park,Aurora Central Catholic,Morton West & Sterling so they would/could have very well been 9-0. Instead Sica changed their schedule & Bolingbrook couldn't find opponent so they ended up playing East. East played much bigger schools than them DGS,Both Hinsdale's & Morton West. What could have been. The year before they went 4-5 but 4 losses were by a touchdown or less they could have been 8-1 with the only loss game 9 blowout to Romeoville.
Loved Morton West 83 team & that fantastic win in round 1 in OT vs Gordon Tech
Best story ever. ABC 7 did their Friday flyover at Bloom Trail. Bloom Trojans + Bloom Trail Trail Blazers = Bloom Township Blazing Trojans. I do hate 2 schools 1 sports program. Well the female channel 7 reporter was inside the school at the Pep Rally when one of the students I kid you not lit a condom on fire & said that's a Blazing Trojan!!! Lol lol
I was on the scouting staff for that team coached by the late Pete Ventrelli .
The lovely Lisa Aprati who did sideline reporting for the old Continental Cablevision and MediaOne "Game of the Week" broadcasts back in the 90s was an '84 graduate of Bloom HS.
Bloom Twp has a blue field turf surface on their football field similar to Boise State
That play in OT was classic!!!! That & the 1985 Morton team which would have made the playoffs under the current criteria were great!! 6-3.
I was under the impression that stunt took place on the old Southland HS athletics cable TV show called "Sports Beat" hosted by Pat Disabato and the late Jeff Ponczak?
I heard stories that included what we both said but either way very funny. I'm shocked Southland don't have football or Illiana or Beecher for that matter
