Sandwich dreams big heading to semifinal

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:04PM

It is a scene that has played out in small towns for generations: little kids going to high school football games on Friday nights and dreaming of the day they get to run out onto the big field to represent their team and their community.

Sometimes those dreams come true as a player, but sometimes they come true later in life, when a kid returns home as a man and takes that football program to places it has never gone before.

For Sandwich coach Derek Avery, the latter is true, as this weekend he will take the Indians to Augustana College where they will take on Rock Island Alleman for the right to go to Champaign and the Class 4A state title game Nov. 26 at Memorial Stadium.

As much as anyone, Avery understands what this means to his community. He's lived in Sandwich his entire life, was a three-sport athlete who played football for the Indians, and is now in his sixth year as the head coach.

"I can't describe how good this makes me feel in that respect," said Avery, who has a 34-24 career record. "My grandfather was a coach in the 1960s, my dad played here and my brother played here. We bleed orange and black.

"This has been coming for a long time that we have wanted to do something like this, and it's just almost unbelievable."

Avery, who teaches math and has also coached the baseball team in the spring for 13 years, never saw a winning season as a player. In fact, Sandwich has had little success on the gridiron in the past, having posted a 54-83 record and two playoff losses since the 1995 season.

Last year Sandwich won three of its last four games to finish the year 5-4, but was shut out of the state playoffs after not accumulating enough playoff points to qualify.

The 2010 season is different.

The Indians won their first eight games before falling to Wilmington in the regular-season finale; but that was just a speed bump as they have scored 49 and 42 points in playoff wins over Chicago Harper and Mendota, which bookended the biggest game in the school's history - a last-second, 10-7 win over perennial state power Geneseo a week ago.

The team's 11-1 mark tops the previous school record (8-3 in 1985), and the playoff wins represent the only postseason victories the school has ever recorded.

Similar to the success enjoyed up the road in Plano, where the Reapers ended an almost quarter-century playoff drought by winning back-to-back state titles in 2006-07, the Indians have a group of players who have grown up and matured together, know their roles and execute the complicated Wing-T offense to perfection while playing stout defense that has allowed just over 12 points per game.

Seniors like Justin Wegener, Connor Voss (lost for the season with a broken leg suffered against Geneseo), Tim Schmitt, Sam Hill (who has missed the season with injury) and Matt Chalfin knew a long time ago they had something special together.

"Growing up I went to a lot of football games," said Wegener, who has also lived his entire life in Sandwich. "Once I got into middle school I told myself I was going to help this team and help this community take it to another level in football.

"We all wanted that."

Wegener, who directs the offense and also plays defensive back, has earned praise from the coaching staff for being the leader a program needs to get to that next level.

"It's truly a team effort and Justin heads that whole crew," Avery said. "I think our team takes on that persona, which is very confident without being cocky. They understand these opportunities don't come around very often and they need to take advantage of it."

The ride has been almost surreal for the Indians, but there is no time to give it much thought. Should the Indians get past Alleman, a team that has won 68 games and made six playoff appearances in the last eight years, they would head to the University of Illinois to face unbeaten Rochester or Metamora, which won the 5A title in 2007 and the 4A crown last year.

But once the job is done and the season is over, the players, coaches and the town of Sandwich itself will have formed memories that will be talked about forever.

"One day our kids will look back and realize they made a lot of history in this little town," Avery told the Chicago Sun-Times' Taylor Bell. "When we made our first playoff appearance in 1985, I was in junior high school. We were 3-6 in most years and I remember an 0-9 season. We had some rough years. We made the playoffs in 2002 and 2008 but we never won a playoff game, not until this year.

"We've gone from rock bottom to sky high."

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