Football: Can East Aurora turn around its struggling program?

On the East Side of Aurora, a century of football seems lost.

What is new is what is remembered and what is deemed patently true. What is old cannot possibly hold any relevance to the present or future. This is the way we view things.

We want it, whatever that “it” is, now.

What we see is either the greatest, or worst, ever.

On some level, this is exactly what high school sports are: A new set of fresh, young faces cycles in every year, the oldest of the group cycles out. How can something happening right now not be the best, or worst, they’ve ever known?

So history is a charge of the old guard — the alumni, the parents, the teachers.

History is slow. Nothing happens now. And time and again, it proves that what happened in the past can most assuredly shape what is happening now, and in the future.

This is how football can be found again on the East Side.

Can it happen?

In four years at East, Bryan Robinson saw two varsity wins.

A 2010 graduate, Robinson personified the best of East football — committed, tough and talented, he earned a scholarship at NAIA Robert Morris University where he redshirted this fall.

Two wins.

Yet, he says simply of a Tomcats turnaround: “I think it can be done, actually.”

“I absolutely believe it can be done,” added East alumnus Kurt Becker, an All-American at the University of Michigan and a member of the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears. “The elements are there. The kids are there. It’s just what’s missing? I don’t know those things. I know there are a lot of talented athletes over there. Just go and watch.

“I can see that they’ve got numbers. Are the numbers out? Obviously not. But they’ve got kids over there. That’s the plus of it all. ”

Nearly 40 years separate Robinson and Becker’s graduating classes. One still has friends in the building. The other is around the program as co-president of the Old Timers Association, a dedicated group of former players and coaches.

Robinson and Becker share the belief of many that all is not lost on the East Side and speaks to the fact that just as many — including the handful of former coaches that remain in the building — feel the changing demographics of East has little do with why the team has had one winning season since 1983.

They admit it’s an uphill battle to convince families of Latin descent to allow their sons to be the first to play American football without the influence of older brothers, fathers or uncles who also participated — but Hispanics have been playing for the Tomcats for generations.

“We had a tremendous mixture of students,” said Pete Ventrelli, who went 13-6 with one playoff loss in 1981 and 1982. “We had (Mexican), Puerto Rican, black, white — we had just a great mixture, the kind of mixture you can build on, the kind that can breed success. We had that.”

And, it’s been decades since the middle schools in the district were without football due to severe budget issues in the late 1980s.

The elimination of those teams put East varsity coaches Don Williams (1989-91) and Wendell Jeffries (91-96) in a hole. Freshmen had to be taught the game, and the program lost a generation of quality players that moved on to other schools.

The cuts were unfortunate time in the district’s history, but it is exactly that. The changing demographics are what they are as well.

“At some point, that becomes old,” Art Panka, who coached from 1997-99, said of people using those factors as reasons for little success. “After 10 years, 15 years, it starts to become old. People are going to have to buy into it and say it’s time to move on from this excuse and let’s get to work.”

Getting to work

What everyone is in agreement on, including the current school board, is a change needs to come at the elementary and middle school levels.

“What you have is three separate entities and that creates some problems,” said Al Tamberelli, who coached from 2000-2005. “You have three separate programs that have no tie whatsoever to the high school. That creates a problem because you have three different systems you’re trying to feed into one and it takes a kid some time to get it worked out.”

Not since Del Dufrain has a Tomcats coach been able to go to the middle schools and have them use his terminology or teach the same techniques.

“Each of the schools wants to have their own identity,” Tamberelli said. “I don’t think that somebody at the middle school wants somebody from the high school telling them who to hire, who to fire or what to do.”

It’s been a toxic mix of budgetary issues, administrative ego and the simple fact that at times, the middle schools — and the high school itself — has been left scrambling for coaches in the summer just before the season begins.

“That was it,” said a former coach. “It wasn’t so much about being worried about running a program — it was a matter about getting bodies, getting guys to coach, period.”

School board president Annette Johnson, a three-sport athlete at East in the early 1980s said the district will be creating an Activities Director position to boost the high school’s feeder system by getting all of the elementary and middle school coaching on the same page.

“That has been non-existent,” Johnson admitted.

Through the district’s 165 H.O.P.E. campaign, a new committee within the board and the support of the Old Timers Association, Johnson hopes to provide in-need athletes the funds to participate in summer camps and allocate more money toward the development of the feeder programs.

“It’ll take some years to get the sports programs fixed, I know that, but I also know that without a feeder system in place it’ll never get fixed,” Johnson said. “We just have to bite the bullet and start. Our kids are talented. Too often people think they’re not, but when you’re up against the Napervilles of the world with all their feeder programs, it’s hard to win.”

A year round commitment

What also seems clear is the East program has not evolved with the game, in terms of the sheer commitment to football it takes to win. Not only do some Tomcats’ opponents have more experienced bodies on the sidelines to pull from, but they’re bigger and stronger.

“From what I’ve heard from different coaches that have coached over the last 15, 20 years (here) the weightlifting program was not consistent,” said Williams, who is also an East alumnus. “I just hear too much feedback that the kids have not made that commitment on a consistent basis. One day, one week or one month does not make a season.”

Robinson agreed many of his teammates did not put in the work, but took it a step further, saying there weren’t enough coaches around to keep kids accountable.

“Someone needs to come in and demand kids to get in the weight room and if they want to start winning, do what he says, follow what he says,” Robinson said. “You have to get everybody active. We need to work hard all (year). We need to be coached year round to help kids out. ”

What could help is a change in rules which prohibited volunteers from working with the Tomcats varsity program like they do elsewhere. Old Timers co-president Steve Kenyon — an assistant at Naperville Central — said coaches at Central don’t have to worry about things like recording games and breaking it down by position for the players — volunteers do that. He also said if the district were to open up itself to qualified and certified volunteers, many members of the Old Timers would jump at the chance to assist in any way the varsity coach needed.

It’s something the current East administration is looking at.

“We are actually going to be changing policy to allow volunteers to become involved,” Johnson said, citing teammates from her state qualifying 1981 softball team that have wanted to volunteer with that program for years but couldn’t. “I say we need all the volunteers we can get.”

The new coach

Every former coach or alumni The Beacon-News reached for this story agreed that on paper, the East Aurora varsity job is a great one to have. With an IHSA football enrollment of over 3,000 it is just one of 22 in the entire state with that many students to draw from.

The sheer number of students, plus the pledged support of the administration, alumni and past coaches will give the new coach a solid support structure and something to draw from.

“The parts are in place for it to be a nice, successful program,” said Panka, who returned as Bryant’s defensive coordinator in 2008 and 2009.

Yet the new coach will inherit a 30-game losing streak dating back to 2008, the second longest losing streak in school history, shattering a 24-game winless stretch from 2001-2003.

Since 1993, the Tomcats have had losing streaks of 10, 14 and 16 (twice).

The last sustained stretch of success was from 1979 to 1983, resulting in a 31-16 record with two playoff appearances.

Since then, there was one start-and-stop where it looked as if the program was turning around.

Tamberelli’s 2000 team went 5-4 capitalizing off what Panka was building with three- and two-win seasons in 1998 and 1999.

Yet since 2001, the Tomcats have gone 0-9 six times, 1-8 four times and 2-7 once — in 2008.

It has led many to ask, “Who would want this job?”

It’s a legitimate query, and athletic director Cam Leadbetter — a former Tomcats football player — expects any interested bodies to ask detailed questions about the program. What gives many around the program hope is there are plenty of answers this time.

“I’m in a pretty good spot,” Leadbetter said. “From top down in our district, the administration is on the same page and we’re getting a lot of support for wanting to turn this program around, and all the sports around at East Aurora. Everybody understands the whole package and exactly what we have to do. Everybody’s on board.

“Coaches want to know they’re going to be supported and want to know what they’re going to be supported with. If they come in and see what we’re willing to do and how we’re willing to help, it’s a very attractive job to come in and work at.”

It’s an attitude and a structure that all of the former coaches and program supporters say is the key to bringing the program back to respectability, and then to sustained success.

“It’s going to take a lot of effort and it’s going to take a lot of energy, but more important it’s going to take time — you’ve got to be committed to time,” Becker said. “The other thing is that in order to have success, you’re just not going to do it as the football team and the school. You’ve got to have the parents. You’ve got to have a dad’s club. You’ve got to have the sports boosters. Everybody’s got to be pulling in the same direction because it takes that much energy in order to create success. That’s one thing that you have to work on. You have to bring all parties together and everybody pulling in the same direction.”

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