It wasn't the way any of the varsity coaches wanted it to end last year.
Despite making the playoffs for the fifth time in as many years, there was no run to Champaign for the 2009 Morris Redskins football team. Though a state championship in 2005 and a state runner-up performance in 2007 were ultimately what the outgoing MCHS coaching staff will be remembered for the most, the thing the most fresh in the minds of Redskins fans is last-year's 35-0 playoff loss to Mendota.
Since then, Head Coach George Dergo retired to focus on his Athletic Director duties and the three other varsity coaches — Dave Auwerda, who resigned last month, and brothers Andy and Tom Peterson will not return in 2010, leaving a brand new staff under Al Thorson to continue to the Redskins tradition.
"I think Al will do a great job. I'm excited for him," Tom Peterson said. "I know he'll work hard and that he'll put in a lot of time. He's always put in a lot of time at the sophomore level. I think he'll do an outstanding job."
With the way things ended last year, both of the Peterson's acknowledged they probably had coached their last games at MCHS.
"I did kind of resign on the field at the end of last year and told the team, but I thought that if it was going to be my last game as a coach, I wanted to thank the team," Andy Peterson said.
Tom Peterson said the loss to Mendota was simply "crushing".
"I was thinking at the end of last year, with the way the program was headed, that it was time to get out. The philosophy of the program and my philosophy did not mesh and I knew I was going to get out," he said. "The way we lost that game to Mendota crushed my whole outlook on coaching. It did me in. At that point, I thought the direction of the program needed a facelift."
Which is what it got as Thorson, John Wodziak, John Courter and Keith Anderson have become the new keepers of the flame.
"Al's got the job now and it's his show. Being an outsider (non-faculty coach) all of these years, I'm just grateful for the chance to coach for the last 15-plus years," Andy Peterson said. "I'm pretty lucky [Dan] Darlington hired me in the first place. Ever since then I've been on one-year contracts, and every year they kept calling me back. This year they didn't ... that's when I knew they were going in a different direction."
Tom Peterson, also a non-faculty coach, said he knew that the football program would look a lot different this coming year.
"I never had any communication with them about coaching again this year and I assumed they were going in a different direction," Tom Peterson said.
Tom Peterson has been coaching since 1984 when he was an assistant coach at Minooka. In 1985 he took over as the head coach of the program where he coached until 1991. He then went on to coach at Joliet Junior College for six years, which led the Morris graduate to return and coach the same team he played for as a youth.
Tom Peterson graduated in 1973 and coached off and on from 2000 through 2009 for the Redskins under both Dan Darlington and Dergo. Andy Peterson, a 1978 MCHS graduate, has been coaching at Morris for the better part of the last 15 seasons — also under both Darlington and Dergo.
Both agreed that the years they have spent here have been treasured.
"We had a lot of success in the 10 years I was there. I was able to go to a state game three times while I was there — twice with Darlington and once with Dergo — so there's a lot of good memories," Tom Peterson said. "I will never forget what we had. The group of coaches we had was fantastic. I just would have liked to see it end in a different manner."
"We had a good run. If you look at where we came in (2005), I think a lot of good things happened," Andy Peterson said. "If you had told me before coaching that first game what was going to happen, I'd have said, 'O.K., I'll go along with that'. I think we did O.K. We made the playoffs every year we were there, and we also made it to state twice in five years. As a hometown kid getting to do that, coaching with my brother, I think it's pretty cool."
When he has time to reflect back on his experience, Andy Peterson said that it's the relationships he formed with the players that he'll always remember.
"I got to meet a lot of good kids and made friends with them. It wasn't just because of football either," he said. "That was the best part of being there. Making the friends I did means a lot to me."