Football: Family ties bind area playoff teams

Updated: May 9, 2012 9:58AM

In sports, teams call themselves families. It’s a term of endearment, and of respect.

Football, of course, is no different.

From the Gasparis at Batavia to the Beebes at Aurora Christian to the Keelys in Oswego — and everywhere in between — football is literally a family affair.

Here are just a few of their stories.

Aurora Christian

Brothers Grayson and Noah Roberts have seen both sides now. And, for the most part, the Aurora Christian football players continue to see eye-to-eye.

“We all started as quarterbacks. Noah and I ended up switching to wideout and it’s definitely working out,” said Grayson, a senior who has caught 27 passes for 352 yards and four touchdowns for Don Beebe’s Eagles despite missing five games this season with a broken collarbone suffered in the season opener.

Noah, a sophomore on the varsity, is the youngest of three brothers and doesn’t remember being picked on a lot by his siblings as a kid but figures if it did happen “it made me a lot tougher.”

“We don’t really have any rivalry,” Noah continued. “We even start on the same side (of the ball) as each other. I made it a goal at the end of my freshman year (during which he moved from QB) to move up to varsity to play with Grayson in his senior year.”

And, he insists, he didn’t even know he had 14 receptions for 313 yards and three touchdowns this season until a reporter this week asked about the brothers’ numbers.

It was only natural, given the family history.

Grayson Roberts was the freshman backup to older brother Jordan, who quarterbacked the Eagles to a state title game appearance in Champaign in 2008, setting nearly every state passing record in the process.

Grayson, who has grown five inches and added 38 pounds of muscle — he’s 6-foot-1, 178 — since that year, succeeded his brother at QB his sophomore year and led the Eagles to the playoffs but moved to wideout last season after Anthony Maddie transferred in.

“It was different, but I feel it was meant to be,” Grayson said. “I enjoy it a lot better. It helped for Anthony (who is committed to Division I Western Michigan) to come in and be a great quarterback.

“After coming in right after Jordan and everything he did, it took a lot of pressure off me (moving to WR). I definitely enjoy being a wideout a lot more.”

Noah, who is 6-2, 168, remembers getting help from both older brothers from their days playing in the yard in Yorkville up until now.

“Jordan showed me stuff when I first played quarterback, and Grayson and I run the same drills together and work out in the weight room together,” he said.

The youngest sibling also shares memories of that run to the state title game, something he and Grayson hope to equal or better along with their current teammates.

“It was really cool, I was the waterboy for the team and saw it from the sideline,” Noah, a seventh grader at the time, said of the game at Memorial Stadium on the University of Illinois campus.

“Since Jordan was a freshman up through Grayson’s sophomore year I was there. When we lost the (3A title game), it was really hard. After the game, I remember Jordan telling my parents he’d trade all the records he set for that championship. I knew right then I wanted to come back for that game.”

— Rick Armstrong

Oswego

There are no horror stories of the sports upbringing of Oswego’s Stewart brothers. Mickey, a senior defensive lineman, and Mickeel, a junior running back, didn’t try to tackle each other in the backyard while mom looked on horrified.

“Me and Mickey grew up playing a lot of basketball and baseball,” Mickeel explained. “Our mom was scared to let us play football until his freshman year, my eighth grade year. We’ve been playing for like four years now.”

What did develop over that short time was a strong competitive spirit, but one firmly rooted in love and support.

“I want to be better than him, he wants to be better than me,” Mickeel said. “It’s a lot of competitiveness, but we’re there for each other at the same time.”

The Panthers (8-2) host East St. Louis (8-2) Saturday at 3 p.m., hoping the strength of the many family ties on the team could be an edge in deciding a win.

“I think it shows on the field because the kids take things more to heart,” said Oswego coach Dave Keely, knowing from example since his son, Tad, is the running backs coach. “They know there is blood out on the field with them. There’s a couple times where Mickey is blocking for Mickeel when we go to our elephant backfield. Mickeel, his brother is blocking for him in front. And they want the best for each other when they’re doing stuff like that.”

There’s also quarterback Ryan West’s go-to wide receiver senior Jack Kwiatkowski and his twin brother, Chris. Even West’s brother, Zach, is now up on the varsity after standing out as the freshman team’s best wideout.

“Our whole concept is we are a family and this kind of epitomizes it because we’ve truly got people that are related on the team,” said Keely, also mentioning freshman coach Fred Miller and his placekicking son, Freddy. “I think it brings us that much closer together. When everyone’s on the same page and playing for each other as they have been, and you’re getting into your 11th game — you say ‘We’ve been here before. We have confidence in each other.’ I just think family takes it up a step.”

— Brian Miller

Mooseheart

Children arrive at Mooseheart for a variety of reasons.

Children of need are never turned away at the Child City, so no matter what the circumstances are, they are given a place to live and learn and grow.

Junior quarterback Jon Hart arrived on campus in a different way.

“After he was born, three days later, he moved to this campus,” said Mooseheart executive director Scott Hart, Jon’s father. “He’s really a Mooseheart kid. He fits in with the other boys and loves being around football.”

Now the Mooseheart kid who could name the locations of every building on campus by the age of five is leading the Red Ramblers’ football team into uncharted territory. Jon Hart, with his father on the sidelines as an assistant coach, helped lead the Ramblers to their first playoff win in 26 years. The smallest program in the state will be back at it at home in the Class 1A second round Saturday at 5 p.m. against Peru St. Bede.

A win would give Mooseheart its first trip to the state quarterfinals as well as establish a new school record for wins.

“I’m really excited,” Jon Hart said. “Second round, this is new ground for us. We’re ready to play. There is a lot of campus excitement. Everyone is thrilled about it. Every week it gets more and more exciting. Everyone can’t wait for the game.”

Jon Hart has done a solid job all season of running the Red Ramblers’ spread attack. Scott Hart is right there with him on the sidelines, though he tries to lose the title of ‘dad’ during games.

“It’s great for us,” Scott Hart said. “I try to not act like a father on the sidelines. I let (head coach Gary Urwiler) coach the offense. I’m there for emotional support.”

Scott Hart said that when he started working at Mooseheart 20 years ago, there weren’t a lot of staff children living on campus. Jon helped pave the way, and now many members of the staff are doing it the way the Harts did.

“It’s been awesome to come through here as I’ve been able to do it,” Jon Hart said. “It’s a different road than the other kids. It’s a dream come true to be able to play football and grow up with these kids.”

It’s connections like that which seem to make football at Mooseheart just a little bit more special than your average football program.

“You watch the young men and you remember them when they were kids out in the grass at halftime emulating their favorite Rambler player,” Scott Hart said. “Now you see them as high schoolers doing battle between the lines. It’s an exciting feeling for me not just to be able to play the sport, but to have a safe place to be and to know their stories and where they came from. It makes you proud.”

— Paul Johnson

Sandwich

Over the last four seasons, the Sandwich football program has been rebuilt from one that was a consistent three- or four-game winner to one that has posted a winning mark each of the last four years with a combined record of 30-10 and an Interstate Eight Large Conference championship, three playoff appearances and a postseason record of 4-2.

A lot of elements need to come together for a program to be rebuilt, but one that the people in Sandwich feel has been a vital element to that rebirth has been the family connections that have been re-established the last handful of years.

There are several such threads on this year’s roster, but one that illustrates it even more is the fact that defensive line coach Steve Weekly, Sandwich Class of 1989, coaches his nephew, junior C.J. Grinstead.

“There was a period of time back in the ‘90s where there wasn’t just a whole lot of guys coming through that had any kind of family ties,” said Weekly, who was the school’s first individual state wrestling champion in 1989 and has been an assistant since 1999. “Now in the last 10 years there’s been a lot of kids and their siblings are coming through, or guys I played with and now their kids are coming through.

“That’s really, really helped us foster the program and build pride. For awhile there we lacked that identity and it’s been real nice to see it come back.”

Like several of the head coaches who have coached their sons in the area over the years, Weekly says he often consciously tries to not show his nephew — his sister Dawn’s son — any favoritism.

Grinstead, currently third on the depth chart on the D-line, feels his uncle has done a good job with that and says it’s been an easy separation of school and family.

“It’s better than not having anybody to talk to after practice. I just get a better feel for what’s going on,” Grinstead said. “Football is an entirely different story than family life — I try to push out family during football practice and games so it doesn’t really matter to me.”

Weekly has seen his nephew’s extra attention to detail pay off as well, especially as Grinstead has recovered from an appendectomy.

“He is improving every day — I’ve got to give him credit,” Weekly said. “He’s in there working and he’s really fighting every day, and I’m really proud of the young man.

“It’s been real nice to see him mature and as he’s gotten older now, he’s not afraid to ask for advice on things. It’s been nice getting to work with him.”

— Jim Owczarski

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