Oliver Antonelli trusts his Cary-Grove football teammates to be good teammates, who pick each other up and pick up after each other.

It’s a byproduct of winning programs, after all.

Details matter for Antonelli, a varsity veteran and an aspiring doctor.

Before he joined the rest of the Trojans after they spent about 45 minutes lifting weights on the first official day of practice Monday, the senior linebacker figured he ought to take one more look inside the weight room.

“Yeah, I probably should do that,” Antonelli said with a nod and smile before hustling off to resume practice.

It’s learned behavior, and Antonelli is as good a learner as you’ll find.

“I think it’s really just tradition [at Cary-Grove],” Antonelli said. “When I was a sophomore, I was lucky enough to be brought up to the varsity group. I was one of the backup players. All of the seniors would be helping out, cleaning up [the weight room]. Connor Anderson was a very great player for us in 2023. He’d stay behind and pick up all the five-pound plates and the little clips on the benches, and he’d put them away. It’s just really the idea of leaving it better than you found it.”

The expectations are always high for Cary-Grove, which won the Class 6A state championship in 2023 and lost to Geneva in the semifinals last year. The Trojans won the Fox Valley Conference title with a 9-0 mark in 2024 and look strong again with a group that includes Antonelli, fullback/linebacker Logan Abrams, defensive back Jason Ritter, linebacker Brady Elbert and linemen Jack Hissong and Andy Bolf.

Antonelli enjoys chasing achievement, on the field and off. He owns an unweighted 4.0 GPA (4.0 scale) and has his sights set on attending Duke, Notre Dame or Illinois. He hopes to study pre-med and says he’s looking at radiology or biochemistry.

“I just love helping people,” said Antonelli, the only child of John and Christine.

No wonder Trojans coach Brad Seaburg calls Antonelli a “team-first guy.” Antonelli (6-foot-2, 200 pounds) played in several defensive packages last season and is expected to be a full-time starter this season.

“Oliver will catch your eye because he hustles everywhere he goes,“ Seaburg said.

Take the weight room, for example. Lifting plenty of plates isn’t the only way to stand out and demonstrate strength as a leader.

”In the offseason, he and a couple of other guys were always the last guys in the weight room,“ Seaburg said. ”They were the conscientious guys, making sure that the weight room was clean before they left. It’s those little things that you see in the offseason that really turn out to be big things about kids’ character. So, he’s a great leader, a great student in our school.”

For Antonelli, the weight room and classroom complement each other. It’s a mindset, and it often translates to success on the football field.

“A big goal of mine is academic success,” Antonelli said. “What’s great about the football program is that I think it helps you with that so much. It keeps you in such a great structure. Everything that the coaches preach to you is about building your own character, building your own industry, your work ethic. Even though we’re learning it in a football sense, it’s so easy and so important that you carry it over to school and social relationships.”

Antonelli is quick to point out that he isn’t the only player on the football team who understands the importance of upholding the program’s tradition of not only achievement on the field but the players’ behavior on and off it.

The players know the community is watching, and the school is watching.

“We know what the standard is that we have to uphold,” Antonell said. “I think it’s so important that we all are locked in together, that we all have that same mindset, and that we’re one cohesive unit.”

The first day of school is Wednesday. The season opens Aug. 29, with C-G hosting Prairie Ridge in a showdown of perennial powers. Antonelli is ready to hit the books – and especially the football field, since it’s been a couple of weeks since summer camp wrapped up.

“You miss football after you’ve been gone for two weeks,” Antonelli said.

The future doctor embraces the challenges ahead.