My Story
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| 2000 |
Growing up I was a very active child. Much to the influence of my brother, I loved being outside playing a wide variety of sports. After playing years of organized soccer and baseball, I finally decide to enroll in youth football in 2001. At that time I was eleven years old and proud to be a Lake Zurich Flame. In 2002, I was completely mesmerized and inspired by our semifinalist Lake Zurich High School football team. I went to every game and became the biggest fan of local heroes such as Miles Beatty, Chris Redding, Jeff Janus, Chris McNeil, Kyle Haight, Adam Wilk, and many more. From then on I knew that I wanted to win a State Championship.
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| 2003 |
With the encouragement and push from one of my favorite coaches, Dean Summers, I first started playing quarterback in my third year of the Flames program. A 7th grader at the time, i quickly learned the demand for leadership and confidence at the quarterback position. Coach Summers really helped me out a lot that first year and our team ended the season with an even record. The following year I played quarterback in the varsity weight class under Coach Bill Castanzo. Bill's passion for football runs deep through his veins and he did an incredible job passing that on to myself
and my teammates. We finished our sensational season 12-2, losing in the championship game. At this point I had played multiple years with a couple of buddies and our close knit group was becoming closer.
Freshman year of high school, 2004, I was asked to play quarterback on the sophomore team. Accompanied by freshman Adam Simpson and Jon Janus, we marched our way to a 7-2 season and a Sophomore Conference Championship. With the unique way of our program design arranged for the sophomore team to practice with the varsity team. My brother, Tony, was the starting wide receiver on the varsity team at the time. I will never forget during the last week of practice-Tony and I somehow got paired together in a drill. He ran a perfect route and burned past the defender, I delivered him a perfect pass, and together we created a perfect play. To me, it was really something special. I looked up to my brother's football mentality as well as the rest of his teammates including: Nick Garlisch, Steve Weinrauch, Nick Summers, Dave Maruo, James Becker, Mike Brazeau, and many more.
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| 2004 |
Sophomore year I returned to the sophomore team, excited for another season. Both Jon and Adam went on to have phenomenal years on the varsity team. After winning our first four games I became sick with Mono and had to sit out the rest of the season. It was very difficult and frustrating for me to not be playing football, but I put my energy into being prepared for next season.
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| Senior Night 2007 |
Junior year, 2006, LZHS acquired a new head coach, Bryan Stortz. It wasn't long before we discovered Stortz's football genius and intense passion for the sport. He completely redesigned our program, and coined our new theme, "We Are Relentless." Srortz showed us the importance of teamwork and dedication while giving us, the players, control. Through many activities, practices, and meetings we realized that our success was completely up to us. Junior year I played the backup role to Matt Blanchard on the varsity team. The simply incredible season ended with LZ losing to St. Rita in the State Championship. With the whole community struck with football fever, a 12-2 season wasn't a bad way for Coach Stortz to start his first year as head coach.
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| #55 Tyler Uhl #40 Jon Janus #6 Bobby DeLeo |
Senior year 07 was full of high expectations. With many starters returning on both offense and defense, the possibility of returning to Champaign lingered in the back of our heads. Winning a state championship was our ultimate goal, but we all knew that we needed to take it a step at a time. Coach Stortz did an amazing job differentiating the upcoming 07 season from last season's success. Our team had many of the same players, same coaches, same fans, same school colors-but ultimately, we were a different team. Stortz made it clear that we needed to start over from last season and build our 07 team one brick at a time.
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| #59 John Gage #21 Adam Simpson |
First game of the season: Loss. Fremd 27 - Lake Zurich 20. Probably the reality check we needed. We came out playing on pure emotion and made silly mistakes in execution. This was a perfect way for our team to take a step back, re-focus, grow, and steam forward. From then on, we won every single one of our games. An 8-1 regular season record and Conference Championship. Five weeks of playoffs meant five weeks of tough games with talented and well prepared programs. In the end, Lake Zurich met Wheaten Warren ville South in Champaign and beat them, 7 to 3. A 13-1 season ending with an IHSA 7A State Championship.
Every week was a complete team effort with different forms of adversity to conquer. During the regular season our defensive proved themselves to be elite, giving up a mere 42 points. Anchored by a stingy defensive line composed of Will Koukal, John Brewer, J.J. Shield, and Tony Pecho. An extremely fast and fierce core of linebackers included: Jon Janus, Tyler LaFontaine, Brent Marks, Wade Self, Adam Simpson, and Mike McGlauchlin. Secondaries were blanketed by defensive backs; Michael Dietrich, Matt Wilson, Kevin Johnson, and Tanner Witt. Offensively, we grew to become a force to reckoned with by putting up ridiculous statistics during the regular season and composing clutch drives at the end of multiple playoff games. Sustained by an extremely talented and athletic offensive line of: Chris Blair, Dylan Becker, John Gage, Steve Midday, and Tyler Uhl. I couldn't be more thankful or amazed by the play of this group. 1. for protecting me (I think I was sacked at the most 3 times) and 2. for creating outstanding running lanes for our talented, fast, and ruthless backs: Jon Janus, Adam Simpson, Matt Wilson, Andrew Maloney, and Dan Kalisics. Big plays through the air were made by acrobatic catches from: Pat Gallagher, Mark Guinter, and Rick Nicolay.
An outstanding group that worked extremely well together. Not to mention some of the finest coaching in the state. Together we were a team and a family. I am honored to have played quarterback for such an outstanding program of gentlemen. I am also thankful for the opportunity to stay involved with the football past high school graduation. Conducting player captain interviews for 4 years was fun and exciting. Being able to return as a volunteer coach in the summers of 2010 and 2011 has only strengthened my affection for this program and the people involved with it.
State Championship, Champaign IL, 2007
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2007 State Championship Parade. 2007 Season Focus Pyramid
#13 Matt Wilson #3 Mark Guinter #84 Rick Nicolay #6 Bobby DeLeo | |
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Here are some articles from the 2007 season. Click the article title below to follow the link.
"To Lake Zurich's Janus, It's Elementary"
