Maloney heading back home to Joliet

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Mike Maloney had informed St. Ignatius athletic director Jim Prunty that he was leaving after one season as head football coach.

Jason Cappel recently resigned as the head football coach at Joliet Central.

The stars were aligned for Maloney, whose friends in the teaching ranks at Central let him know about the opening. He went through the interview process and this week received board approval as the Central head coach and physical education instructor.

Central played a freshman schedule last fall and will be operating on the freshman and sophomore levels when Maloney takes over next season. The following fall, in 2010, he will have a varsity team consisting of juniors and seniors.

The team at Joliet West, coached by current Joliet Township coach Jason Aubry, will consist of juniors and seniors as well in 2010. That’s when all players in the district will don the uniform of the team in their school building.

To say Maloney, a former two-way all-state lineman at Joliet Catholic who went on to play nose tackle for Ron Turner at Illinois, is thrilled with the opportunity is an understatement.

“I contacted Chris (Olson, the JT athletic director) after I told St. Ignatius I was moving on,” Maloney said. “They put me through the interview process, and I got the job.

“I missed being part of the Joliet area. To be 100 percent honest, there wasn’t a day that went by during the season when I didn’t throw on WJOL (Radio) to listen to all you guys and catch up with what was going on.”

Maloney is a newlywed. He and Sarah were married last weekend. They are parents of 9-month-old daughter Madison.

“My wife and I live in Orland Park, but we’re looking for a place in Lockport,” Maloney said. “We want to be a little closer. I wanted to live and work in this area. I was praying something would happen, and it did.”

Maloney was a mainstay as a senior on JCA’s 1999 state championship team, the first of six titles the Hilltoppers have won under coach Dan Sharp.

But winning at JCA and winning at JT Central can be two different things.

“I used to be one of the critics,” Maloney said of Central. “In my interview, Chris (Olson) said, ‘You’re from the other side of the river. How are you going to respond to the naysayers?’

“The greatest thing I have going for me is the experience I have had that a program can be successful if certain adjustments are made. The numbers and talent are there at Joliet Central. I will refocus on building community pride. The kids who play in the program have to understand they are a representation of the entire area, and they have a responsibility to give it their best in the classroom and on the field.”

Maloney looks to what Bolingbrook coach John Ivlow has accomplished as a shining example.

“What John Ivlow has done at Bolingbrook with kids in similar socio-economic circumstances ... I want our kids to understand that I am serious, but I also love them and care about them as men,” Maloney said.

“We’re going to push to make Joliet Central an extension of the community, where people can look at our product and see guys who represent the school well and foster an environment where they are proud of the football team and what it stands for.”

Role models

Maloney feels he has had excellent role models along the way.

“Dan Sharp absolutely has been a guiding light for my career,” he said. “He always inspired me to achieve higher, he’s always given great advice. I am one of those guys who could have gone either way, bad or good. Dan taught me what it was like to be a man, to treat people the right way, to make the right decisions. I give him all the credit.

“(JCA offensive line coach) Dave Douglas and all those guys on the JCA staff, they taught me to be responsible to the team first, to be a leader. To have had a chance to coach with them for a while was an unbelievable experience.”

There were others as well.

“My dad (Dan) is a huge inspiration,” said Maloney, who also spent a brief period as an assistant at the University of St. Francis before becoming the head coach at St. Ignatius. “He is always someone I can look to for advice.

“And the Voss family, Jared (Maloney’s baseball coach at JCA) and his dad, Bob. Bob gives you an absolutely candid opinion.

“And, of course, my college career. I had a great opportunity to play under quality coaches who gave me an example how to instill discipline in an environment where people may not take to it, but where you need to build a community within a football program. You may not like everyone in your football family, but you have an absolute responsibility to love each other and inspire each other.”

Among Maloney’s mentors was longtime Romeoville head coach Mel Deskin, a JCA assistant in the 1999 championship season.

“Mel Deskin was one of the people involved in developing the state tournament, and he never had gotten involved in it before 1999,” Maloney noted. “To finally give him a championship was unbelievable. The gift our senior class gave him, and to get to know him on another level with that championship, that was very special.

“That’s what high school athletics are all about, the relationships. I will have those relationships the rest of my life because of what Dan (Sharp) stressed, when you commit yourself to the community aspect of a football team.”

On the line

Maloney’s expertise, of course, is along the line of scrimmage, and he understands the importance of finding and developing linemen at Central.

“What Dan (Sharp) does is evaluate his guys and he puts them in position to win,” Maloney said. “I am going to surround myself with the best staff I can, but I have to take the reins on getting the linemen identified and getting them in the weight room. Teaching them will be a year-round thing. But the important thing will be finding those linemen in the school and building trust with them.”

Considering the strength of the SouthWest Suburban Conference, Central may find the sledding difficult when it first returns to varsity ball. Maloney understands that.

“It will take time,” he said. “It will be a building process. I really don’t care if we are 0-9 our first year, but we are going to learn our system and stick to it. That’s exactly the way it was done with Dan (Sharp) and other successful coaches I have had.

“It will take building relationships in the community, too. Recruiting has a bad stigma with private schools, but I also need to do that kind of thing, build relationships with public grade school programs. You really can’t promise kids things, but you have to be visible to be a positive role model.”

Maloney plans to be visible, all right — year-round with his players and in the community.

“I think we are very fortunate to get a person like this in the district,” Olson said. “As a head football coach and as a teacher, he comes highly recommended. His pedigree as a player and coach is good.”