Kealy leads Stagg to success

Sometimes, words are meaningless. Even, or perhaps especially, a high school English teacher knows this.

That time arrived for Stagg soccer coach Mike Kealy - an eight-year English teacher - at the 10-game mark this season.

"Some times the best thing any coach can do is get out of the way," Kealy said. "It was after a loss to Bolingbrook and on the bus ride home, no one said a word.

"At the next practice the coaches and I played a game we call ‘Crossbar' while we sent the kids off to the side to talk to each other."

The dozen consecutive wins that followed left the Chargers with their first sectional title since 2005 and Kealy with the 2010 SouthtownStar Boys Soccer Coach of the Year honors.

Though the Chargers fell 1-0 to Edwardsville in the supersectional, they went further than any other local 3A team. Perhaps because Kealy let them go further.

"He gave us space to talk about what we needed to do," Stagg senior captain Tom Lojek said. "Most coaches don't let their players do that, but rather want things done their way."

There's no hiding the fact Kealy is a players' coach, especially given the fact - head down, working the ball, his mop of blond hair escaping from a knit hat - he easily could pass for one. Of course, as recent as 1999, Kealy was a marking back for the Augustana College squad that posted a 16-4 record - the best in school history - and before that he wrestled and played soccer and baseball at Argo.

"He doesn't talk to you like he's a coach above you," Stagg senior captain Zack Judickas said. "As a coach he's determined to push a team to give 110 percent, but on a personal level he's good at listening to what other people think about anything."

"He teaches us to be good people as well as good soccer players," Lojek said.

Kealy got 110 percent out of this Stagg team, as the eighth-seeded Chargers blanked Crete-Monee and Player of the Year Carlos Posada 3-0 in a regional semifinal. In the title match the Chargers outlasted top-seeded Sandburg in a three-overtime, 2-1 win. It took four overtimes to beat No. 5 Marist 2-1 in the sectional semis, after which the Chargers had a relatively easy time in a 3-0 shutout of Eisenhower for the sectional title.

Once again, Kealy didn't need words.

"I'm speechless," Kealy said with tears in his eyes, watching his team sing the Chargers fight song after the win over Eisenhower.

Perhaps he'll have more chances to find the right words after a big Stagg win. After all, with a 56-25-5 record and a sectional championship in four years as a varsity coach, a wife (Susan) who also is a Stagg English teacher, and an 18-month-old son (Caiden) whom Kealy projects as "a future All-Stater," the 32-year-old coach figures to be around a while.

"Coaching gives me the opportunity to be involved with the sport I love and make a positive impact in young people's lives through it," Kealy said. "My kids know I care about them as players and as people.

"I couldn't see myself doing anything else."

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