FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[ncc58]

Wow, the discussion on this board was certainly taken a turn. I'll had a few of my observations.

If you had the stats on the diversity of North Central from the late 70s or early 80s, the number of African American players has not significantly changed. The number has been nearly constant over a  25 year span. In the late 70s, NCC had a three year All Amercian OL from Thornwood, but they didn't result in a huge increase of players from that area. I also think there is a huge difference in recruiting from the Marham or Dolton areas, and recruiting from Chicago inner city high schools.

I don't see North Park ever being able to attract quality athletes. The campus is locked into an established Chicago neighborhood. When we visited North Park on a December late afternoon, it took us about 5 minutes to decide it wasn't where we wanted to spend 4 years in college. Schools like Elmhurst and North Central have huge advantages, as long as the coaches/recruiters know how to show off their schools and communities.

Let's not kid ourselves about Wheaton. Wheaton has a national reputation as a premier Christian school. Athletes throughout the country who are interested in a Christian education at a small school are attracted to Wheaton with little effort on Wheaton's part. Wheaton has greater state diversity than maybe any other Div III school in the country. My cousin is a high school coach an hour north of San Diego. Two of his players play for Wheaton. He knows a lot about Wheaton's program but knows nothing about Elmhurst, NCC, Carthage, ...

[ncc58]

Coach Thorne at NCC coached high school in Wheaton for what... close to 20 years.  He is going to use all the relationships he built over those 20 years with

When North Central was competitive in the late 70s and early 80s, there were very successful in recruiting from the Chicago area. They had a lot of players from the Downers Grove and Glenbard schools, as well as players from the Chicago Catholic League (big St. Rita connection for a while). In their down years, NCC was failing to get players from these areas.

When Thorne was hired at NCC, many expected him to bring over his staff from  Wheaton-Warrenville HS. He didn't do that. What he did was hire an assistant coach from each of the 6 principal conferences in the Chicago suburban area. This gave him connections into a lot of high schools. His staff is no longer made up that way, but NCC is now competitive in recruiting players in the Chicago suburban area. Jon Schweighardt is the recruiting coordinator and is well known and respected among high school coaches who remember him as an All State performer and a player at Northwestern.

[usee]

Athletes throughout the country who are interested in a Christian education at a small school are attracted to Wheaton with little effort on Wheaton's part. Wheaton has greater state diversity than maybe any other Div III school in the country. My cousin is a high school coach an hour north of San Diego. Two of his players play for Wheaton. He knows a lot about Wheaton's program but knows nothing about Elmhurst, NCC, Carthage, ...

that is a misrepresentation at best. to say this exposure comes with little to no effort is misinformed. ask your cousin's football coach how he knows about wheaton. the fact is there are a number of wheaton football alumni in the san diego area and a couple that are tied in with the coaches. I would be willing to bet your cousin's coach knows someone who played/went to wheaton and he learned about wheaton through this network within the last 5 yrs. to the extent wheaton is well known by christian athletes in parts of the country it is a tribute to the 20+ yrs JR Bishop, mike swider, and the many alumni have spent building a network that refers qualified players. this did not happen with little or no effort. to the contrary this has taken a long, long, time to create and maintain.

[CardinalAlum]

North Park seems to have a very diverse roster.  Wouldn't some of those same student athletes be better students at some of these private schools where they would be surrounded by better students?  I know for a fact that North Central (not the head coach) visited Thornton, Thornwood and Thornridge in 1982.  What he said was after looking at their scores those guys were idiots.  I was now at Bloom HS at the time.  Seems like some schools don't want to bother with students that may need tutoring etc.   They want the prepackaged student athlete that came from the perfect family with good grades.  If a student athlete puts a good effort on the field, shows up every day but has trouble in school due to problems previously stated I believe that can also translate to academics with help.  Also schools need to relate to minorities when recruiting.  I wonder how many would feel if you were in the same position.  Are we such elitist that we believe that if it were me; I would still be a great student athlete?  Some day North Park is going to get a good coach and the rest of the CCIW will be complaining about their unfair advantage because they get all the inner city kids.  I would like to see a foot race between some of the North Park backs and others in the league and see who wins.  Results could be very interesting.

Go Thunder,

I think you are WAY off base in your assesment.  A student that doesn't study at North Park is not going to study any more at North Central or Wheaton, IWU, AUGIE, etc.  Who says that North Central or any other CCIW school has better students than North Park?  I played at NORTH CENTRAL with guys from Thornridge, Thornwood and even Bloom, so obviously, those guys weren't dismissed.  In fact, our QB was from Thornridge and was a 3 year starter and all CCIW player.   North Park will get a good coach some day.  Will they ever be good enough that people will complain about the advantage they have of being in the city?  I doubt it!  Stroll around the NCC campus, the Wheaton campus, Elmhurst, Wesleyan, Augie, Carthage(left out Millikin,  ) These are all beautiful campuses with great surroundings.  North Park can't offer that.  You sure seem to change allegiances like underwear.  One month you're a Wheaton fan, this month you're on the North Park bandwagon fighting for truth, justice and the American way.  Which is it?

[79jaybird]

When Roach, Mack and Krohn were at Elmhurst leading the Bluejays we had 10-20 guys every year from Florida!  Faron Ryan, Karl and Klay Smith, Eonne Bangert, etc. 
While these players had talent and were great players, I wondered why we spent so much time recruiting out of Chicago Metro, when the Catholic League and IHSA are some of the strongest confs. around.
The  tides turned when Nichols, Journell, and Kryzkowski started spending more time in the Midwest.  ex.  Demma, Evans, Cooley Jr., Brogan, etc. are all from Glenbard North.

[Mugsy]

If a school only recruits certain types of schools that's an unfair advantage.  Maybe a private school can legally do this but this in no way entitles them to participate in the NCAA.

Go Thunder, I think you are missing the point.  I don't think CCIW schools look at recruiting from the standpoint "we will recruit only from the schools in the western suburbs because we don't want inner city kids."  That would be discriminatory.  CCIW schools don't have millions of dollars to throw around for recruiting, in fact they have very limited budgets.  It has only been in the last 10 years that CCIW schools have even had full-time staff devoted to recruiting in the offseason.  Prior to that it was the head coaches job only.  CCIW teams by-in-large recruit by networking and alumni.  They talk to high school coaches they know, who have sent players previously.  They talk to alumni to see if they know of players in their area that may fit what the school and program is looking for. 

The NCC athletic department sends me mail asking for money for the football program and if I know of any recruits that might be good for North Central.  I have a graduate degree from NCC, but I played and coached football at Wheaton.

You are accusing schools of discrimination and pointing the finger at how schools recruit by saying they make conscious decisions to avoid inner city schools and minority athletes.  Do you have any evidence to support such a claim?

Avoiding to recruit at certain schools or areas is unethical. 

Again do you have evidence to support your claim that CCIW schools are specifically "avoiding" schools with minority athletes.  That is a rather significant and ugly accusation you are making against CCIW schools and coaching staffs.  I won't argue with the point that many CCIW schools have a very low percentage of minorities, but I would argue against the claim it is deliberate.

The NCAA should be the final judge on this if a school is participating in the NCAA. 

After seeing some of the judgements the NCAA has made over the past few years, I don't think the NCAA should be a judge of anything...

[CardinalAlum]

 
The NCC athletic department sends me mail asking for money for the football program and if I know of any recruits that might be good for North Central.  I have a graduate degree from NCC, but I played and coached football at Wheaton.

We're still waiting on that check!!  I knew there was some good in you with that graduate degree!!   

[Mugsy]

 
The NCC athletic department sends me mail asking for money for the football program and if I know of any recruits that might be good for North Central.  I have a graduate degree from NCC, but I played and coached football at Wheaton.

We're still waiting on that check!!  I knew there was some good in you with that graduate degree!!   

"The check is in the mail..." and I've sent a list of all 3rd string soccers players from all Wheaton and Naperville high schools to Coach Thorne.

[79jaybird]

Usually (not always) the only time I receive mail from Elmhurst is when they are asking for "assistance" towards some program.
I contribute some $$ towards our fb program annually but for a young guy right out of college with rent, small salary, etc. it's hard to contribute tons of money, even though you would like to.
I have never met anybody who was interested in playing D-3 football not getting their opportunity to play.

[augiedogie]

"You're missing my point of giving others an equal treatment".

Everybody is treated equally. If you have the test scores and gpa to get into the school you get in. If you don't have the scores to get in you don't.  In fact minorities that are on the border probably have a better chance of getting into a school than other students.   

[augiedogie]

As for giving back as an alumni:

I didn't play football, but I was on the swim team, so my donations so far have been to the swim team to help assist for new uniforms. Unlike the other sports, we had to pay for our own uniforms!  Then one day when I win the lottery, I'll give back to the football team so we can have a gold field with blue stripes, and then maybe we can have some alternative uniforms like several of the other schools have.  I think it would be great to see a uniform consisting of both yellow pants and yellow jerseys. Other teams seem to always wear their special jerseys when they play against Augie, it would be nice to have something else to wear for once.

[augiedogie]

I thought you were talking about things being equal getting into a university. If you want to talk about family lives then I agree with you all things are not equal. However just because I didn't have the same upbringing as you did, doesn't make me ignorant to the fact that these situations exist. My roommate freshman year grew up in Cabrini Green. I heard the stories and we had many discussions.  Maybe the young student athletes if they wanted to go to college and play football they would think twice before getting into fights all the time because I can't think of one school where fighting is acceptable.  I must be way out of touch on the issue and so must the admissions office where I worked giving tours of the campus. I must be out of touch with the college scenary giving that I havn't been around it since May.  I must be an expert on the topic since you have said I am. Why should a school release a list of what schools they go to. This is D3 athletics!!! This isn't the NFL making a list of all the minority coaches so they don't get fined for not giving someone a chance.  It's hard to "recruit" athletes when you can't give them an athletic scholarship.

[Mr. Ypsi]

To inject a note of law here: private schools are just as subject to non-discrimination laws as public schools, unless they reject ALL federal funding (and that includes Pell Grants, etc., for the students).  Hillsdale College in Michigan is famous for doing just that, but if ANY other school in the country has rejected ALL federal funds, I'm unaware of it.

Anti-discrimination statutes apply to private as well as public schools.

[Tailgater]

Tailgater-
Yes that is correct. Are you looking forward to your sons final season next year?

RedmenFB44:
No I'm not looking forward to my son's final year, basically because it's his FINAL sesaon! and we're having too much fun with the Carthage football family. I have been watching him play football now for 13 years and just thinking about the end of his career coming next season brings a bit of sadness. I'm certain your parents/family felt the same way when your career was concluded. I was real proud of Ryan being named to the CCIW All-Conference team this past season. He worked real hard, changed from right tackle to left tackle mid-season to plug a weak-side leak and truly earned the recognition he received.

On the Bright side, Ryan has a younger brother who is a high school senior at Oswego and plays both O-line and D-end. Like his older brother he was named all-conference, all-area and was named to the IHSFCA All-State Accademic football team. He is currently being recruited by several D3 schools (Carthage being one of them). Who knows maybe tailgating at Carthage games will continue on after Ryan graduates.

As for UW-Whitewater and MUC championship game, Coach Rucks said he was at the UW-W vs St John's game. He said UW-W is the real deal and will win the national championship. St. John's coach after the game said he didn't know what hit him. I'm fairly confident UW-W will win. Not sure of the final score and how weather may effect the game, but I'll say UW-W by 10

[Jim Matson]

Sorry I brought it up!