I can’t think of a worse recurring fan complaint than people saying the NIC-10 should kick Boylan out of the conference. Yet those people won’t go away. I got another e-mail Saturday morning after Boylan won its 47th consecutive league game with a 49-7 drubbing of previously unbeaten Hononegah.
Don’t blame Boylan. Blame the nine teams that can’t beat Boylan.
Last year, Boylan lost in the first round of the playoffs to a 5-4 team from Wheaton North.
The year before, Boylan edged a 5-4 team from Libertyville in the first round, before getting routed 28-0 by Crystal Lake South in the second round.
The year before that, when Boylan truly had a loaded team, the Titans barely beat a 5-4 Mount Prospect team 14-7 in the first round, and the Prospect coach complained nonstop that they were robbed.
If 5-4 teams from the suburbs can compete with Boylan, the problem is NOT Boylan stealing all the talent in the area.
Back when Boylan WAS a top five or six team in the state, the conference did have teams that could go toe-to-toe with Boylan. The same goes true for Boylan basketball. Belvidere won two state titles in the early 1990s. Hononegah made it to the state semifinals in the late 1990s. Guilford reached the state title game in basketball in the early 1990s — something Boylan has never done.
Boylan has won ONE state title in its entire history of the school and that’s in boys golf.
No one talks about kicking Stillman Valley out of the Big Northern or Dakota out of the NUIC. Stillman if favored to win its 5th state title in 12 years and Dakota could win its third in six years.
Stillman treats state title games like Boylan-Auburn games, winning 52-22 last year. That’s a team rivals can’t compete with.
The NIC-10′s problem with Boylan is Boylan’s problem with the NIC-10. It’s not that Boylan is too good, it’s that the NIC-10 isn’t good enough. A stronger conference would have no problems competing with Boylan. And Boylan would grow stronger from the competition and cope better with the rest of the state.
A decade ago, two or three teams from the NIC-10 could whomp on the best teams from the Crystal Lake area in both football and basketball. Now, the Fox Valley Conference has passed the NIC-10 by.
I saw signs of the NIC-10 bouncing back this year. It still has a long ways to go, but teams have become much more diversified on offense. Here’s hoping Guilford, Hononegah, Harlem and Boylan all do well in the playoffs this year. NIC-10 football needs a strong shot of hope.
Maybe it’s football teams can start making the climb back the NIC-10 has made in girls basketball, where Freeport twice finished second in the state and Boylan, Hononegah and Auburn all won more than 25 games last year with junior-dominated teams.
Thank you very much Matt, for providing an account of the conference that actually represents reality. Yes, Boylan has been dominant. I never lost a conference game, and while that was fun, it also upset me because i believe it hurt me in the playoffs playing two games with any competition in two varsity years in the Nic-10. Did we lose on our own accord and mistakes both years in the playoffs yes. But i believe that the lack of regular season competition to some degree directly led to these losses. Would it be nice if there was a conference that Boylan could go to and find more competition, yes, of course, but this is not possible logistically at this time. In talking last year to a coach from Belvidere North (who in 2008 and 2009 provided the closest two games for boylan) i finally found an attitude in conference that had the right mindset. “Let’s not hate boylan because they beat us, let’s look at how they beat us, and work harder so that we can compete.” Complaining and crying doesn’t help you beat the Titans, working harder than them, and turning the defeats into motivation beats them.
Boylan is not invincible, as shown by the playoffs, and i would hope that the rest of the Nic-10 would try to emulate their success rather than use it for hate, which produces nothing.
I can’t think of a poorer excuse for “journalism” in my life. Thanks for offending the athletes and their families of the “other nine” in the NIC-10.
No i’m not a Boylan fan, never have been, never will be. I think what people find offensive against Boylan is the ability to go out and recruit. Harlem and Hononegah certainly do not have that luxurty, They work with the players who live in their district and make them members of their team.
And while we are commenting on Boylan, a few years ago, Boylan was playing one of its last basketball games for the season against Harlem at Harlem, That day, the illustrious Boylan coach went on the airwaves and begain making excuses for his team (in case they lost) saying that the referees at Harlem were biased against his team. Harlem had a fairly good team that year but Coach Goers wanted to make sure that if Harlem won it wasn’t because of their playing but because of referee bias against his team. – What a crock!!!!
Boylan deserves any bad rap it gets since it actively recruits players from all over town. This is nothing new. (Maybe they should just stick with Catholic players and we can see how good they really are.)
Matt, where’s this coming from. Take those hands down from in front of your eyes! Let’s do football. Boylan suits up, say 70 students for a varsity game. Where did those 70 kids come from? Well, mostly from District 205 schools: Auburn, East, Guilford, and Jefferson. Harlem has players from its’ district on the Boylan squad. And then there’s the “scholarships” and “aid to education”. Don’t try to distract us with Stillman Valley or Dakota. They supply athletes out of their own school district.
I agree Boylan hasn’t been that good outside the NIC10. Look at the trouble they had with Belevidere this year. But how are the local schools able to compete when their talent pool in every money generating sport has been tapped.
hey, i was there for those north-boylan battles the last couple of seasons and i’ve seen belvidere go toe-to-toe with boylan this season, and the last poster is right. its a mental thing right now with teams. who cares if boylan has won 47 straight, i know from talking to kids they either go in thinking they got beat or they go in wanting to be that team. the 08 and 09 north team wanted to be that team and im sure in the back of their mind the 09 north team used that as a spring board to make an elite 8 run last year. if kids and coaches stop whining about boylan this or boylan that and develop an attitude that its just another good high school team then get after it in the offseason someone would break the streak. plus, look at stillman teams like oregon and byron don’t fear stillman they expect to beat them no matter what and it makes stillman tougher for the playoffs and the closest games they get all year are from these teams that don’t look at a record or streak but just it as a team they should beat
Folks, every private school can draw athletes from a 30-mile radius. Yes, that’s an advantage. That’s why I was a huge proponent of the attendance multiplier. … But Harlem and Hononegah also have 1,000 more students than Boylan. That’s an advantage too. … Even with the attendance multiplier, Harlem and Hononegah are in a higher class than Boylan this year. … I’m sorry, but I just don’t see Boylan stealing star players from other schools every year. … Boylan’s dominance started when families fled the Rockford public school system after the desegregation lawsuit. That’s also when Hononegah and Harlem began to grow like mad. All three of those schools have an advantage, but none are so great that the others can’t compete.
Belvidere has reached the state semifinals far more recently than Boylan. The other teams in the NIC-9 don’t have to do anything incredible to compete with Boylan. They just need to be as good as they used to be. And Harlem, the one NIC-10 rival to noticeably improve the last decade, needs to take one more step up.
To Count Me Among Them, I highly doubt I offended all the athletes and familiers from the “other NIC-9.” Maybe some, but I doubt many. I’m used to coaches and players in the NIC-10 saying they can compete if they just do things right. Guilford’s defense absolutely throttled a team in the playoffs last year that was far better than Boylan. Glenbard West finished a close second in the state in Class 7A last year but didn’t score until five seconds before halftime against Guilford. It won because Guilford had five turnovers and only 31 yards of offense, but Guilford showed it had half a championship team. I don’t think its unrealistic to think they can build the second half of that team. Or than any NIC-10 program could do that.
You are correct Matt, you never see a star player jump from a local school to Boylan. Use to happen in Chicago all the time. And if you think Boylan is out recruiting junior high players, you need to take your blinders off (very few great players at the jr. high level are great at the varsity level) and lay blame on where it really is, the kids. Going out and being part of a sports team just isn’t the thing to do in many schools anymore. Lots of great athletes remain hidden in the hallways of local schools. I blame being lazy and lack of discipline more then anything. Reality check time.
I am an Addison Trail graduate, class of 1984, we lost the 6A final to East St. Louis that year. Since I played tennis and not football I had great seats. Looking forward to this weekends game.
Matt, go back to your comment #6 ” I’m sorry, but I just don’t see Boylan stealing star players from other schools every year” Matt, were these athletes in Boylan’s school district or their recruiting zone? Those players came from 205. And the starters, 22 of them for football, came from 205. Go back to the first poster who was disappointed with the level of competion. Had he and the rest of the athletes at Boylan played in their home districts, he might have had a more challenging career.
Dwight, you say 22 of Boylan’s starters come from District 205. That means Rockford. Are you now saying that Boylan shouldn’t have players from Rockford? How about Rockford Christian? Can they take students from Rockford? And Christian Life? Boylan is a Rockford school. It’s actually great to hear that so many of its players are from Rockford…. Not that they have to come from Rockford. I started out (as did my older brother and sister) in a Catholic school 15 miles away instead of my rural grade school one mile away because my mom wanted us all to have a Catholic education. We didn’t switch schools until we decided that for financial and geographical reasons, we couldn’t afford to send eight kids on a farmer’s living to a private school 15 miles away.
Matt,
You have to admit that Boylan has an advantage and the multiplier doesn’t help the conference schools. I will give you to stats to support my belief.
1. If it comes down to coaching how come none of the Boylan coaches have ever had success coaching at an RPS or other public school? The system should be able to be replicated at other schools. Not to mention if the coaches are teachers they could make more money, have better insurance and a pension if they went to a public school. The fact is, they now they can’t win so they don’t try.
2. Boylan is the only large private school in the entire state in a public school conference. We can all witness for ourselves why that exists.
And the private schools that are in conferences with other private schools are far more dominant in the foottball playoffs than Boylan has ever been. Think Joliet Catholic, Chicago Mount Carmel, etc. … I think even Boylan people would say they have an advantage. But Hononegah, with 2,100 kids and great financial demographics, might have the biggest advantage of all. Harlem also has an edge with 2,400 kids. And Guilford has an edge over Freeport and the other three Rockford public schools because it has always been the Rockford public school that has the highest number of people trying to get into it. … Freeport was one of the two smallest schools in the NIC-10 when it went undefeated in the NIC-10 four straight years. And it also lost a few good players during that run to Freeport Aquin, which has always fielded a strong Class 1A team and won a couple of state titles.
The point is Boylan has no insurmountable advantages, not even close. Boylan has won 47 consecutive NIC-10 games because Boylan has deserved to win those 47 in a row. They aren’t busing in star players from out of town. They are winning with kids who mostly go on to play Division III football, if any football in college. There’s no reason why other NIC-10 schools can’t build solid footblal programs and beat Boylan. Truth is, I thought Harlem was going to beat them in 2008 and 2009. They didn’t. So all credit goes to Boylan for a (continued) job well done.
You are right. I came from a farm town 45 minutes away from boylan while I lived in Belvidere’s district. I made the sacrifice to go to boylan because i wanted a better education, which Boylan undoubtably gave me. Most students when they come to Boylan are not stellar athletes. I would urge you to come into a gym at Boylan and any other school and see who is working harder. Don’t smear what any Boylan student did because you think it was simply for sports. There are hundreds of reasons that students choose Boylan over public schools, last of which is athletics. Boylan does not need to recruit, its reputation of scholasticism and athletic achievement does that for it. Again, which is more fruitful for your public school, complaining as you have been for how many years, or working harder. I would assume you are all adults who are criticizing Boylan’s “tactics” and are thus instilling this misinformed attitue in your children, an attitude that says that they are under an unfair disadvantage. I’m sure that does a lot of good for them going into games. You are crippling their chances by refusing to admit that Boylan has beaten you in the past five years due to hard work, and outstanding coaches who care supremely about the well-being of their players. This forum is showing exactly what Mr. Trowbridge asserted. Boylan’s winning has brought out haters because of that, winning.
Well written, boylan09, but if you are who I think you are you are probably the wrong person to be making the Boylan doesn’t have an edge argument. Any team would have loved to have had you. Actually, that’s one of the edges private schools get, both academically and atheltically. People who pay to go to a school are the people who care about those things the most,. Even if you wouldn’t have worked as hard as you did at Boylan, you would have worked 90 percent as hard somewhere else. … I also think some people pick Boylan for sports reasons first. Heck, we know student-athletes do that in college, why not in high school. … But I do know how hard Boylan athletes work and how well they are coached. I also know they are winning with a lot of Aaron Einhorn types who are incredible high school players, but not someone colleges are looking to recruit. … And I think there’s not that much that separates Boylan from Harlem and Hononegah. I think those schools can win in the playoffs too. I just give Boylan credit for knowing how to win
the fact is stick a fork in the conference it will be a long time before a belvidere school again comptetes on the top tier and when they do compete again it will be belvidere north since that is where all the money is in belvidere. the next school to fall is hono when they grow too big and harlem when they decide to divide. in the meantime the little sisters will continue to be little sisters jefferson, east, auburn they are never going to even sniff a title in football. harlem had some great talent and if they couldnt win with the bunch they graduated last year and this year it isnt going to happen for them. the fact is to make the playoffs is beat the usual suspects jefferson east auburn you might have a fight with belvidere and belvidere north and really be competitive with guilford, hono and freeport. seriously i dont expect anybody to knock off boylan for the conference for years to come. the true standard is the playoffs and boy does this conference blow. a great harlem team one and done your conference champs boylan against a 5-4 team one and done the rest all done the only exception whas belvidere north and they played lower level teams and that was smoke and mirrors they are what this year? the real question is why dont we consolidate teams look at wrestling non of the dist 205 teams can even fill a full roster to compete the analogy can be made only substitute hono for boylan nobody is going to topple them in the conference for wrestling. simply 205 doesnt have the horses. look at all the all-sports races where was east, jefferson, auburn? and what are the rankings for boylan in the last ten years you cant all subscribe that to coaching etc
Again, if Boylan is simply winning because they work harder and have better coaches why have none of their coaches taken over a public school program? The pay is better, insurance is better and they would have a pension. To use college or the pros as a comparison, don’t assistant coaches from great programs take on head jobs at other schools? Or, mid major coaches move up to bigger programs. Private school teachers make 2/3 the salary of public school teachers, plus the insurance and pension. It should be a no brainer.
Readingmike94, I know how bad it looks, but I also know the conference has always had several bad teams, yet was very strong when I first came here in the early 1990s, once having the state’s No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams and having two teams for several years that were good enough to reach or threaten to reach the state semifinals. And none of those teams had great talent. Bolingbrook had far more future college players than the 14-0 Belvidere team that shut them down in the state finals.
The conference has almost always had to rely on great coaching and hard work to win. I think it can do it again. The biggest problem in the NIC-10 is the bad teams have gotten worse, much worse, but East and Jefferson are definitely on the way up now.
With a couple of breaks, the NIC-10 wouldn’t look so bad. I still think Belvidere would have won the state title its first year in Class 5A if quarterback Kyle Tevebaugh hadn’t hurt his ankle on the first play of the game in Morris. Belvidere still led Morris until the final 2 minutes, and Morris went on to lead until the final minute of the state title game.
The Boylan team with Jake Smolinski should have reached the state title game. The Titans played their worst half of the season in Lake Zurich, which finished second, then almost won with a furious second-half comeback.
North was thisclose to the semis last year, thanks admittedly to a good draw. But still.
And Hononegah has played well the last two years in the playoffs and Guilford at least played great on defense last year.
A lot of the suburban private school teams do far better in the playoffs than during the regular season, because they drop down in class. If Belvidere, North, Freeport and East can make the playoffs again, they should do the same.
scholasticism
Mr. Trowbridge, I appreciate your comments and especially agree with all you said in post #15. I used too much hyperbole in saying the last reason to go would be athletics, obviously winning has a large part to do with an athletes desire to come to the school. However, in 2004, the year before I decided to go to Boylan they were 4-5, not exactly a pedigree, while Belvidere looked to be on the verge of winning a state championship. School was and is a huge – and understated by outsiders – advantage of Boylan’s success in obtaining good athletes.
Sydney Y: If you look at Boylan’s coaching staff, I believe there are only 3 non-Boylan alum coaching in Boylan’s entire football staff. The only non-alum on the varsity staff has a son currently on the team. That is why they stay, and partially why they are so good at what they do. They do take less money, they do get less benefits. And I believe they embrace that. They believe in the system that helped them gain success, in a system that they love, and in a system where they can pray before games.
@Sidney Y “why have none of their coaches taken over a public school program?”
Cal Cummins of Freeport was a Boylan teacher and coach at one time (1980′s).
Are the IceHogs in the same conference as the BlackHawks? No. Why? The BlackHawks have access to the IceHogs talent pool, thus weakening the competition. Matt, you throw in Christian Life, Rockford Christian, but don’t forget Rockford Lutheran and Keith. There are only so many athletes in an area.
Hononegah has access to a 25,000 or so population base. Same for Harlem. Using the “30 mile” recruiting zone, Boylan has access to 200,000 plus.
I went to Boylan because my parents wanted me and my four brothers and sisters to have a good CATHOLIC education. To simply say one goes there for a good education is bull. If you want to learn, you will learn, no matter where you go to school.
I’m done kicking this dead horse.
Boylan is probably the only private school that atively goes out and recruits athletes and then offers them scholarships to go to school there. I know that Lutheran does not offer “athletic” scholarships and I doubt that Rockford Christian or Christian Life does either. I know that Boylan will disguise it as a “financial need” scholarship but let’s be just a little bit real.
To Not a fan: All private schools recruit students. That’s how they stay in business. And it’s completely acceptable. Colleges recruit students too. If Boylan is out there chasing great athletes and offering them a free ride, that’s something else, but in 20 years of hearing that same old grumbling, I’ve never seen one iota of proof about that. … It seems cheap and underhanded to me to make accusations like that without offering examples.
Thank you again Matt, was i “recruited” yes. The principal at the time came to my confirmation class asking us to look into Boylan for the spiritual and academic advantages. That is the extent of recruiting. As Mr. Trowbridge said, never has there been one bit of evidence. Also, the financial aid that you seemed to mock is something taken very seriously and most of the kids that receive that benefit are found after school around 5:30 working for that privilege of aid. Please don’t undermine their work because of your fictitious claims.
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As a Stillman Valley supporter who grew up in the Rockford school district, I would prefer that you never compare the Stillman Valley Cardinals to Boylan ever again. I personally knew a stand out athlete during the late 80′s/early 90′s within the Rockford public schools that was extended an offer to attend Boylan for his athletic abilities only. The schools within the BNC have never accused one of the other schools of recruiting their players because it doesn’t happen. On the contrary, they respect great coaching and the discipline that the athletes demonstrate to win conference, as well as state titles.
I did not compare Stillman Valley to Boylan. … I contrasted Stillman to Boylan, both in recent state titles (five to zero) and in complaints by fans (zero to waaaaaaaaaaay too many).
That said, it’s cowardly and cheap to say you personally know someone who was “extended an offer to attend Boylan for his athletic abilities only” without naming names.
It’s impossible to fight anonymous allegations.
As a Boylan graduate(class of ’94) and 4 year athlete(soccer) i can tell you that the reason Boylan has great sports teams is because we strive for excellence in all areas. Boylan has numerous awards in excellence in education is that because they only “recruit” the smartest people in district 205 or the surrounding area, no it is because our teachers and students take pride in themselves and their school. We work harder than anyone else and the results are evident. I’m sick and tired of all these losers here in Rockford making excuses for their failures. Boylan holds its students to a higher level and the students reach those expectations. If these schools want to succeed in sports and in education maybe they should look at Boylan as an example. Boylan stresses academics, discipline, and school pride. It’s only natural that this transitions to the playing field. If the other public schools in the area don’t want to lose their top athletes to Boylan maybe they should change their ways and stop making excuses because in the end you just make yourselves look like a bunch of little cry babies that have already accepted that you are inferior. It is a self-defeating prophecy you know you are going to lose before you step on the field and guess what you do lose. If you continue to tell your kids that they can’t win against Boylan they never will. That is the problem with America today if something seems hard to do just make an excuse why it can’t be done, don’t actually work hard to change it. Failures in life fail because they don’t try hard enough. So to all you sad sack cry babies out there don’t make excuses just strive for success that’s what we do at Boylan and as you all can see it definitely works. So all I have to say to all you LOSERS out there is T-I-T-A-N-S WE ARE THE TITANS AND WE ARE THE BEST, but obviously everyone out there knows that!!!!!!!!!!!!!