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When Dundee-Crown’s football team slipped past Crystal Lake South, 14-13, on Friday night, the Chargers improved to 3-0 for the first time since 1993. For third-year coach Vito Andriola, who won three games total during his first two seasons in Carpentersville, the victory was especially gratifying, proving that his methods are finally starting to pay off.
The thing that made (Friday's win) really cool was that we've put in so much time – the kids have and the coaches have – in trying to change the culture. That's been the hardest thing for me – changing the culture and raising the expectations. For myself, it's just doing what we've done every place we've been, but it's been difficult.
I hate (losing). It's just horrible and with all due respect, I'm not used to it. I don't take losing really good, but I take poor work ethic and character worse. And to me, those are all hooked together. Those are things we're trying to change here. No one understands football like a football coach. You work 6½ days for one game. You're taking 30 to 40 hours of your time. That's the thing about football that people really don't understand is that how much time you invest and then you play 48 minutes and it could come down to one play. To me, those things make football so unique and that's why I love it. It's so much like life.
It's like anything else – the more you invest in something, the harder it is to realize failure. We talk about that ours is a program of commitment, not involvement. So if you're committed, the failure really hurts. It does. It hurts when you lose or when you don't succeed. And let's not say lose – if we play as hard as we can and we don't succeed, that's not losing. I always say this to the kids: Don't tell me that there's only eight successful teams at the end of the season – the eight state champs. My goal as an educator and the teacher is to do the best they can do. That's my goal because there's a saying that a lot of times, people have expectations that are so low and they're always reaching them.
We talk about being a family and playing for each other. We coach for them, but sometimes, I'm really hard on them. But I tell them, sometimes, you get (angry) with your parents and so you're going to get (angry) at me sometimes. And that's OK. But we always say this: We show our care through our concern and that's just how it is. I always tell the kids that, when I stop yelling at them, that's when they should start worrying. But it's always better when (kids) are playing for yourself, your school and maybe for someone else because it makes it harder. Sometimes, when you're by yourself, it's easy to let yourself down. But it's hard to let Dundee-Crown down and the community and the coaches, because again, we've worked so hard at it.
We're lucky because everything we've been telling them has been coming true. Sometimes (in the past) they were happy if they finished the game – who cares about the score? Now, we're talking about making the playoffs. But I've always said this: We have a philosophy we've had everywhere we've been. I think that the program wins three games, the coaches win three games and when you're really good, the players win three games. Look at Cary-Grove. Their coaching staff and their program (each) wins three games every year – that's six games and then their players come through and that's what we want to be like. I believe that with my heart because those are the consistent things.
• I'm Just Saying is a regular Sunday feature. If there's someone you'd like to see featured, write to me at jarnold@shawmedia.com or send me a message on Twitter @NWH_JeffArnold.