HIGHLAND – The scoreboard burns bright under the Friday night lights.
For many, it is the end-all and be-all. Who is best. Who is not. Who won. Who lost.
But those colored bulbs do not tell the entire story. Not even close.
The Highland Trojans ran onto their home field last Friday for their homecoming game against rival Munster. They had lost four straight and had been shut out in two consecutive games.
It didn’t look good on paper.
Since Adam was a quarterback and Eve was a cheerleader, high school football has been pretty much the same. When a team struggles and loses for a month or more, it takes a coach and his staff to keep the players above water.
Many high school teams have quit long before the scoreboard reads 0:00.
“Since the summer, we’ve just been trying to build things up,” said first-year Highland coach Jimmy McCormack. “We are trying to learn how to compete.”
And that’s exactly what the Trojans did against Munster.
They battled.
They never quit.
They were in the game into the fourth quarter before eventually falling 52-34. And the stands were filled with fans cheering for this one-win team.
“This is not how we wanted it to be,” said senior running back and quarterback Jake Slaven. “The records and scores don’t really show who we are. It all starts on Monday. It’s a new week. We have to put it all behind us.”
Highland travels to Kankakee Valley on Friday night.
Slaven was 3-for-9 passing for 37 yards against the Mustangs while rushing 25 times for 173 yards and two touchdowns. He also recorded five tackles from his linebacker position.
His brother, Justin Slaven, had five catches for 53 yards and a touchdown. He also scored on a two-point conversion and made eight tackles on defense.
Aaron McCormack, Highland’s other quarterback, completed 8 of 11 passes for 69 yards and a touchdown. He also carried the ball 15 times for 91 yards and two touchdowns.
Every yard gained and every tackle made by these Trojans proved they have not quit.
They are not going to stop fighting until it is time to turn in the equipment.
“The score doesn’t define us,” Justin Slaven said. “It’s the little things. We’re out of position or we don’t make a tackle. We’re up. We’re 100 percent improved. We know we are capable. We just need to get better and keep on working hard.”
McCormack replaced Ben Geffert late in the summer after Geffert returned to coach at his alma mater, Griffith. The Trojans had won just three games over the previous two seasons, so McCormack knew the rebuilding process would continue under his watch.
The roster doesn’t have many seniors.
But the younger players have experience because many of them were already playing as sophomores.
A year ago, McCormack said, only 15 players were consistently coming into the weight room. That number doubled this season.
Football may be the most difficult sport in which to turn a program around. One or two players cannot change a football program. It takes 15 or 20 players just to begin the rebound.
“It got to the spot where our kids had to look in the mirror,” McCormack said. “How far are you going to dig deep? I thought our guys did that against Munster. They played really hard.
“Now we play a team we can beat. Then we have to keep working so we can compete against a very good Hobart team. If we can bring the same effort we had against Munster the rest of the season, it would make me very happy.
“And it will set us up for what we can do next year.”
McCormack said the way the Slaven brothers played against Munster helped lead the team. The home crowd inspired everyone.
Sometimes, it only takes a spark to get a fire going.
“We did a lot of the little things right against Munster,” Aaron McCormack said. “That gives us potential heading into sectionals.”
The IHSAA postseason draw is Sunday. Highland plays in Class 4A Sectional 17. It is a very tough sectional, but the blind draw opens up possibilities. The Trojans could draw a team they can compete with.
Attitude and faith can change a team, regardless of its record. And, in time, that can change the numbers on the scoreboard.
Never quitting is one of the best qualities in high school sports.
And in life.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

GRIFFITH – Charging into Week 8 of the season, only 52 yards separate Lowell’s Tymothy James and Griffith’s Desmond Neylon from the top spot among Indiana’s leading rushers.
James, a junior, has rushed for 1,441 yards and 18 touchdowns. The senior Panthers standout has 1,389 yards and 23 scores.
This one could be going down to the wire.
“I’ve got something for him,” Neylon said of James. “I’m going to win it.”
Obviously, the postseason run a team makes can help its players in such competitions. And with the IHSAA state tournament draw set to air Sunday, coaches, players and fans are beginning to turn their attention toward the postseason.
Griffith, which hosts Calumet Friday night, plays in the very tough Class 3A Sectional 25. Lowell, which travels to Munster Friday, is in Class 4A Sectional 17.
Equally as tough.
But the two programs already met Sept. 4, with Griffith winning a shootout, 36-28. The Panthers held James to fewer than 100 yards rushing.
Neylon believes he has the tiebreaker.
“I had 356 yards rushing with five TDs against Lowell,” he said.
Both standout runners operate behind very good offensive lines. Griffith, however, wins when it comes to size.
The Panthers are huge to the 10th power.
“I think we have the biggest offensive line in the state,” Griffith coach Phil Mason said.
“When they’re standing up, I can’t see the defense,” Neylon said.
The 5-foot-7, 180-pound Neylon began his high school career at Lake Central. After two seasons with the Indians, he transferred back to Griffith, where he grew up playing Pop Warner football.
“It was an easy transition because I already knew all the guys here,” Neylon said. “They made me feel like family.”
He was 5 years old when family members encouraged the excitable youngster to play football. His father taught him how to find the hole while carrying the ball. Then Neylon heard about Eric Dickerson and watched hours of the NFL Hall of Famer on YouTube.
“I tried to make my game like his,” Neylon said.
The Panthers went 9-2 last season and won the Greater South Shore Conference South championship. But a 50-35 loss to Knox in the sectional semifinal, along with the influence of former Panthers coach Russ Radtke, planted the seeds for this season.
Immediately after the loss, the players wanted to get back into the weight room and start working for the 2026 season.
It wasn’t a week or two after the Panthers got off the bus.
It was the next day.
“Usually after a season I’ve given players time and have had voluntary workouts after Thanksgiving,” said Mason, who is in his 26th season as a head coach. “I’ve always given kids a little bit of time off. Our guys wanted to get right back at it. We’ve developed a really good weight room culture, and the kids jumped right back in.”
Neylon spent the summer working on his footwork – how to maintain his balance, spin and avoid a hit. His 12-yards-per-carry average is proof that all that work is paying off.
“We’re lucky to have him. He’s really good,” Mason said. “He’s like the rest of the team. We try to take advantage of every minute we have. He’s really matured as a player. His leadership has really come a long way in a year.
“He has natural instincts in doing what he does.”
Consequently, Neylon appears destined to play football on Saturdays. His 5-foot-7 frame could limit which colleges come calling, but he is hearing interest from Grand Valley State, the University of Indianapolis and Indiana State.
Several members of Neylon’s family work in the construction trade, and he has done that type of work when he can. He said that after college, he would like to return to a life like that.
But there are too many goals ahead of him right now to be concerned with a tool belt.
“I plan on being first in the state,” Neylon said.


By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

LOWELL – It was the middle of September back in 2005. I was writing two columns a week in those days.
There was no crazy news to write about. No one died.
So I wrote some words about the Lowell Red Devils, who were 1-4 heading into Week 6. But I had seen the team twice. They had some studs. Jeff Clemens. Scott Gray. Jed Travis. Ryan King. And others.
I don’t recall the exact words I wrote 21 years ago, but I basically said this team coached by Kirk Kennedy was much better than its record.
Ten wins later, on Thanksgiving weekend, the Red Devils shocked the state with a 28-27 victory over Indianapolis Roncalli to win the Class 4A state championship.
During the celebration, Kennedy shook my hand and said thanks.
I was like, why?
“Because our staff knew we had a good team, but I don’t think they believed it until you wrote that,” he said.
It wasn’t why I wrote it. I was just pointing something out. I didn’t expect it to happen.
But I wasn’t shocked when it did.
Lowell trailed by two touchdowns at halftime inside the RCA Dome. I was walking to the press box during the break when, in the underbelly of that place, I heard a voice screaming at his team in the locker room.
It wasn’t PG-13.
Lowell offensive coordinator Jim Carlson said there was a camera in the room, expecting to record Kennedy’s speech. After one sentence, the camera was shut off and carried out of the room.
Those words were only for the players.
They were harsh. But they inspired a sputtering team to go out and dominate a better team and win a state title.
This is who Kirk Kennedy was.
A great football coach who knew how to inspire teenagers. Probably the best I ever saw.
He did not allow excuses from anyone. Not the best player on the team. Not the worst.
There was a standard that had to be followed.
And for 19 years, that’s exactly what he did.
Lowell was a team everyone wanted to play at its homecoming before the fiery coach arrived in 1991. They won 10 sectionals, eight regionals and three semistates before Kennedy left after the 2009 season.
Kennedy died Sunday at the age of 63.
RDP. RIP.
“We were bad before he got there,” Carlson said. “He said we had to get in the weight room and learn how to win. And that’s exactly what we did.”
In that glorious season, Lowell hosted Fort Wayne South in the semistate. It was in the mid-teens that night, with a November wind blowing.
Kennedy had a winter hat on his head while wearing shorts.
That was one of his traditions.
Shorts on Friday nights.
The crowd was huge. Several television stations were there, along with radio and print media. The press box was big enough for six people, like an outhouse perched on top of the bleachers.
The lines trying to get into the bathrooms were Disneyland long.
I later wrote that if Lowell wanted to become a state power, the facilities had to improve.
The following summer, members of the community came together and built a wonderful press box big enough for everyone.
Former Lowell athletic director Don Bales jokingly called it the Steve Hanlon Press Box the following season.
Lowell would advance to the state finals in 2007 and 2009 as well before Kennedy left for Bloomington South, Franklin County, North Judson and, finally, Kankakee Valley.
The Red Devils will host the Kougars Friday night.
Perfect symmetry.
Kennedy brought so many things to LHS.
The running backs wore No. 6, Kennedy’s number when he played football for Howard Schnellenberger at Louisville.
He had a Teacher Appreciation Night every season in which educators wore the jersey number of the player who picked them as their favorite.
His daily expectations transformed many lives, both on and off the field.
Many area coaches once played for Kennedy, including Red Devils assistant Brandon Grubbe.
He rushed for 5,923 yards and 80 touchdowns and played in two state championship games.
“You knew what you were getting every day,” said Grubbe, now coaching at Lowell. “He was very demanding, but he wasn’t an &^%hole. He was a very good guy and treated others very well.”
During the 2008 season, Grubbe fumbled a ball in a blowout win over Andrean.
He wasn’t the only Devil who played poorly.
Everyone knew what was coming.
“We were at the practice field at 7 a.m. on Saturday and we ran for two and a half hours,” Grubbe remembered at Tuesday’s practice.
He also recalled the day Kennedy played Shania Twain in the weight room.
All the players hated it and complained.
Kennedy went off.
He told them the music wasn’t lifting the weights. They were.
Don’t let something you can’t control affect what you can control.
No excuses.
Do your best.
Period.
Grubbe said Lowell will line up in the Power I formation Friday to honor Kennedy. That was his offense for decades.
He said Crown Point is expected to do the same because of Lowell’s influence there.
I wonder how many Power I formations we will see this weekend?
We should all rise to our feet when one occurs to honor this great legacy.
This great man.
Current Lowell coach Casey McKim coached against Kennedy before arriving on Commercial Avenue two years ago. They formed a good friendship.
And the Red Devil Pride Kennedy started continued last Friday night when junior running back Tymothy James carried the ball 50 times for a school-record 394 yards in a victory over Hobart.
“When I got here, I was told RDP stands for Run Don’t Pass,” McKim said. “So we’re keeping Kirk’s legacy going.”
McKim went to visit Kennedy on Saturday.
He walked in and the ailing coach was watching a football game. Kennedy asked how the Devils had done the night before.
Some things never change.
“Most people talk about how good of a coach Kirk was,” McKim said. “But everyone talks about how great of a person he was.”
On Thursday, there will be a wake and service for Kennedy at Sheets Funeral Home in Lowell from 2 to 7 p.m.
Carlson was with Kennedy when he gave his final requests with his wife, Michelle.
Mike Pickett, the famed running back who led Lowell past vaunted Hobart in the 1994 regional that put the program on the map, will read Kennedy’s three favorite Bible verses.
Heaven’s coaching staff just got so much better.
I got to cover most of Kennedy’s years at Lowell.
I saw him ride his Harley several times.
I saw him ignite an entire community around one thing: togetherness.
I’m going to miss you, Kirk.
I believe you’re in a better place.
But our place now is missing some color and life.
RDP.
RIP.

By Steve Hanlon
​Heartland Sports Network

HAMMOND -- When Jeremiah Patton was 6 years old, he fumbled a football during a youth game. No one gave him a slushy at the postgame concession stand.
He came from a family with higher standards.
His uncle, Bobbie Bell, put a football in his arms and made him carry it everywhere for a week.
“Maybe more,” Patton said with a laugh. “I had to hold onto the ball even when I was taking a shower.”
Obviously, it worked.
Patton, a junior running back at Bishop Noll, has rushed 88 times for 862 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. He also plays linebacker, where he has recorded 45 tackles, six tackles for loss and two sacks for a Warriors team that is climbing out of the depths this fall.
Bishop Noll (4-2, 2-0 Greater South Shore Conference) travels to River Forest on Friday.
The program has not had a winning season since 2013, when the Warriors finished 5-5. Noll will host Boone Grove in Week 9, with the winner earning the GSSC North championship. The Warriors have not won a conference title since 1998.
So how did this happen?
Enter second-year coach Rick Good, the Lazarus of Region football coaches.
The former Mt. Carmel player and coach has resurrected programs at Calumet and, to some degree, Lake Central. But the grind of coaching eventually caught up with him, and he stepped away from the profession in 2024.
“I was selling roofing tiles,” Good said. “For a year. Then I got a phone call.”
Bishop Noll athletic director Cindy Wilson had worked with Good at Calumet. She called him and simply said, “Think about it.”
He did. Eventually, he accepted a job few others wanted.
Noll had won just eight games over the previous 10 seasons.
As the program has begun to turn around — thanks in part to Jeremiah and his older brother, Jeff — Good has seen the roster grow. At the beginning of the rebuilding process, just 11 of the 43 players on the roster had played football before arriving at Noll.
“At the start, I realized we didn’t have enough football-playing kids,” Good said. “We had a callout meeting a year and a half ago, and we had 12 kids show up.”
So Good and his coaching staff started going to practices for every sport at the school. They talked to athletes, invited them to football-related activities and encouraged them to give the sport a try.
One by one, other athletes began trickling into football workouts.
One of them was Jeff Patton.
“When we were little, we did Oklahoma drills in the backyard,” Jeff said of his workouts with Jeremiah. “We were trying to kill each other. But I drifted away from football when I got to Noll. Basketball has been my main thing here.
“This is my first year back playing football. Coach Good showed me how fun playing is.”
Jeff has made an immediate impact, recording 45 tackles, eight tackles for loss and four sacks.
The Warriors will play nonconference games against River Forest and West Side before Boone Grove comes to Hammond with a trophy awaiting the winner.
“Once I started coming to practice, I knew we had a real team and not a fairytale,” Jeff said.
Jeremiah knew Noll had struggled on the football field but chose the school because of its academics. Now, he is seeing the pieces come together on the field, too.
“I had faith that we could turn this around,” Jeremiah said. “We’re big on overcoming adversity. When I got here, nobody thought we could win anything. But that’s starting to change.
“We will play for a conference championship in a couple weeks. We can have a winning season. That is all something we all care about.”
The school is growing, with 780 students, although many of them are not football players — at least not yet.
Good is running football camps at local CYO venues, and while the team's success is happening now, he remains focused on growing the numbers on his roster.
“Our goal in the two seasons I’ve been here has been to win more than we lose and to play for a championship,” Good said. “And we have a chance to do that now with leaders like Jeremiah and Jeff.”
Good also credited seniors Sammie Rosas and Jeremiah Alford for providing strong leadership as the Warriors continue their turnaround.

ST. JOHN -- Pete Koulianos was walking the halls of his alma mater a couple of years ago when he spotted an underclassman he had met a few times.
The new Lake Central football coach was looking to recruit his own hallways.
The student was a baseball player — a one-sport athlete, not uncommon at a school the size of Lake Central.
Koulianos had a simple question.
“How can a Verta not play football?”
Frankie Verta’s father, David, was a standout football player at Whiting in the late 1990s. But Frankie had other ideas. He had hit .400 as a freshman for the Indians and was all in on baseball.
Then Pete and David started working on him.
Eventually, Verta gave football a shot. He played wide receiver for Koulianos last season, beginning a football journey that has now led to a college scholarship.
“I was all in on the baseball thing,” Verta said. “But my dad was my biggest fan. We watched football together on the weekends. So they sort of talked me into it.”
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound senior has made the most of the decision. Verta enters Friday’s home game against Chesterton with 29 receptions for 532 yards and seven touchdowns.
He also has an offer from Grand Valley State, which he accepted, giving the NCAA Division II power another Lake Central football player to keep an eye on.
None of it might have happened if Verta hadn’t simply been willing to welcome a freshman into his circle two years ago.
His classmates were getting together when someone mentioned that a freshman would also be stopping by. That wasn’t necessarily a common occurrence.
Then Wes Lalich walked through the door.
These days, Lalich is the one throwing passes to Verta.
The two quickly became friends, spending summer days trying to put on weight and throwing passes as they imagined themselves as Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
Now, they are helping lead Lake Central into the heart of its Duneland Athletic Conference schedule.
The Indians have won back-to-back games for the first time since 2021.
Lalich, a 6-foot-2, 185-pound junior, has completed 87 of 141 passes for 1,238 yards and 11 touchdowns this season.
“I played a lot of sports when I was young,” Lalich said. “But I always loved football the most.”
Lalich played flag football in elementary school before moving to tackle football in middle school.
That’s where he met Koulianos.
“I met Wes when he was in eighth grade,” Koulianos said. “He was always around. He was always showing up. I believe he could end up being one of the best we’ve ever had here.”
Lalich played junior varsity as a freshman before seeing occasional varsity action as a sophomore. He played a full game against Michigan City, but suffered a season-ending injury the following week against Chesterton.
His return has helped transform Lake Central’s offense.
After two close losses to open the season, the Indians have won back-to-back games and enter Friday’s matchup with Chesterton at 3-3. The next three games — Chesterton, Merrillville and Valparaiso — will provide another significant test.
“We’re playing more wide-open offensively now,” Koulianos said. “I knew we could do that with Wes back there. And we just don’t have Frankie out there. We have a nice group of receivers with him.”
Koulianos pointed to sophomore Jayden Carpenter-Mansfield, junior Jonquil Sharpe and junior Will Bolden as reasons for the depth and talent in the receiving corps.
This isn’t the same Lake Central team that struggled through the 2023 season.
The Indians have dealt with plenty of adversity this year, beginning with the extreme storm that hit Northwest Indiana on Aug. 11 and disrupted their schedule. They then suffered two losses by a combined five points.
But Koulianos has been proud of the way his players have responded.
They haven’t quit.
“As a team, we have to persevere,” Lalich said. “We had to stay together and keep fighting. We have to work together to get past adversity. And that is what I believe we’re doing.”

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

GARY – Dean “Dino” Hidalgo was a classic American — an Army veteran, a longtime member of the Indiana State Excise Police, and a man who loved sports, friends, family and a good, funny conversation.
Thank you for your life, sir.
“He woke me up at 5 a.m. so I could get my work in,” said West Side football coach and son Mark Hidalgo. “He worked with me on everything, coached me in everything. Our first game this year was tough. It was the first time he wasn’t at one of my games.”
Dean “The Dream” Hidalgo died Oct. 14 last year at age 79.
“One of the last conversations we had, he told me he wanted me to be a head coach again,” Mark said. “That was one of the reasons I took this job.”
For 31 years, Mark has coached football in Northwest Indiana, with head-coaching stops at East Chicago Central (1998-2005), River Forest (2023-24) and now West Side.
And his father was in the stands for every game — until now.
The Cougars are 3-1 heading into Friday’s game at Wheeler, and they have scored 30 or more points in each of their last three games.
Junior running back Chris Rudolph moved to Gary after starring at Mt. Vernon, Illinois, last season. He has rushed for 709 yards and 11 touchdowns in Hidalgo’s high-powered offense, including four touchdowns last Friday against Calumet.
“When I got here, I looked around and thought we had a chance to be real good,” Rudolph said. “Coach H’s offense gets our athletes in the open field. We need to play good defense against Wheeler. Our linebackers need to read their keys and make plays.”
Senior running back Courtney Anderson also plays linebacker alongside Rudolph. In four years, he has never beaten Wheeler — the only team on the Cougars’ schedule they haven’t defeated.
“When coach (Hidalgo) came here, he told us we were going to score points,” Anderson said. “But he wanted me to focus more on defense. I love running the ball, but I like hitting a guy even better. We’re going to have to do a lot of that against Wheeler.
“Levi Murray is a great running back. A tough kid. They gave us a good beating last year.”
Wheeler and Murray beat West Side 42-26 last season, when Hidalgo was an assistant at Calumet.
“Coach H is making great changes,” senior running back Kamari Loggins said. “He knows we have athletes. We’re spreading the ball around on offense. He’s preparing us for the next level. We have to come together. We have to have confidence to do great things.”
Remember the old days?
A couple of generations ago, football was considered a blue-collar sport, where the sons of steelworkers battled it out on muddy fields. It was that way for a long time.
But look at the top-ranked teams in the state today. Many have college-like facilities and resources to build their programs.
High school football has evolved into a game where resources matter. Having the support to build facilities, develop athletes and sustain a program can make a significant difference.
That’s where West Side is running uphill.
The Cougars’ best players are playing on both sides of the ball, logging more minutes than many of their opponents. Fatigue can be a tough opponent.
But right now, Hidalgo has his inner-city team playing at a very high level.
And that is something that would put a huge smile on Dino’s face.
“My father was a huge inspiration in my life,” Mark said. “He taught me everything I knew from when I was a kid. He made me the athlete that I was, and he always made me strive to be the best.”
Hidalgo was a great three-sport athlete at Merrillville. He wrestled for two years at Purdue before playing football, baseball and wrestling at MacMurray College, where he earned Collegiate All-American honors with his father looking on.
Now, the page has turned.
Dino’s life lessons are being passed on to the young men on the west side of Gary — learning to work hard, get better and never stop striving to reach the top.
A great life never dies. It passes its light to the next generation.
That is what’s happening at West Side right now.
It’s stories like this that drew me into sportswriting all those years ago. Inspiration from other people’s lives can change the world.
Well done, Mark and Dino.
And to all the Cougars following in those huge footprints.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

WHITING – When Adam Hudak arrived at Whiting last year, there wasn’t much on the table for the once-proud Indiana small-school football power.
The program that won mythical state championships in 1948 and 1954 and finished as the Class 2A state runner-up in 2015 was leaking oil into Lake Michigan, just a block from Ray Gallivan Stadium.
Even the classic walking tacos at the concession stand weren’t tasting as good lately.
Hudak is the fourth coach the Oilers’ senior class has had. Whiting had won just eight games over the previous three seasons.
And there were more kids playing lawn darts at the park than suiting up for football.
“We had a lot of work to do when I got here,” said Hudak, who has also coached at Lake Station, Wheeler and Hammond Central.
“When I coached at Lake Station and Wheeler, I hated coming here,” Hudak said. “I hated the stadium. I hated the fans. I hated the train. They were rolling, and we couldn’t beat them.”
The Oilers carry a 3-2 record into Friday night’s homecoming game against Calumet, which enters at 4-1.
When Hudak arrived at Whiting, he quickly noticed senior two-way lineman Shakur Parker. Parker was one of the first players to introduce himself, reaching out his huge hands to greet the fourth head coach of his high school career — a career that hadn’t amounted to much success to that point.
“As the losses came, our roster dwindled,” Parker said of the period before Hudak arrived. “Everything changed immediately when (Hudak) came. He told us what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. We worked hard on our speed and we worked hard in the weight room.”
“Four days a week we’re in the weight room,” Hudak said. “I’d never done that before. But I like where it’s taking us, and it will continue.”
The Oilers’ run-dominant offense has scored more than 50 points in each of the last two Fridays.
Hudak credited Tom Davenport, a member of Whiting’s 2015 state runner-up team, for taking over the weight-training program his father, Chris, ran during the program’s glory days.
Parker has provided plenty of muscle of his own.
In August, he broke Tom Davenport’s school bench-press record of 375 pounds. Parker can squat 505 pounds and deadlift 545.
You can gain a lot of yards running behind a horse like Parker, who is drawing plenty of college attention.
Calumet College, which will begin NAIA football next year, has offered Parker, along with Carroll College and several Division III programs.
Parker grew up in East Chicago but played youth football in Chicago with the Southside Wolfpack. His brother, Thomas Jones, was an all-city running back in Chicago and inspired Shakur to reach for the stars.
Parker and his senior classmates are 0-3 in homecoming games. He had heard about Whiting’s rich football history and wished the program hadn’t fallen on such difficult times.
Then Hudak arrived.
Parker said the new coach changed everything.
Hudak also credits Whiting Superintendent David Verta, a standout quarterback for the Oilers in the late 1990s, for putting an emphasis on turning the program around.
Whiting now has a middle school program after struggling to maintain one for three years.
The numbers are rising.
Julian “JJ” Madrueno has rushed for 640 yards and seven touchdowns. Romeo Rosario has added 257 yards and eight touchdowns.
Hudak played for Kirk Kennedy at Lowell in the 1990s, when the football wasn’t exactly flying through the air.
It was ground-and-pound football.
Rosario also has an offer from Calumet College.
“I haven’t won a homecoming yet,” Parker said. “But we’re better. We want to get one.”

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

MERRILLVILLE -- Punters are a lot like sportswriters.
No one knows their names unless a ball slips off the side of a football and gets shanked six yards down the field. Or a fact in a story is reported incorrectly.
That’s when all hell breaks loose.
That’s when the nameless get pushed loudly into the spotlight.
Last Friday night, Michael Klaich’s name was shouted from the sidelines and stands during his Andrean football team’s massive Northwest Crossroads Conference game at rival Hobart.
And every time the 6-foot, 170-pound junior ran off the field, he was mobbed by his teammates.
The 59ers’ punter had four punts in the game. In Andrean’s dominating 28-10 victory, all four landed inside the 15-yard line, repeatedly trapping the Brickies’ offense deep in their own territory.
One punt was downed at the 3-yard line. Two more landed softly inside the 1.
Such a night is why punters get recognized.
“I think I’d only had one punt in my career inside the one,” Klaich said Monday afternoon.
As a sophomore at Hobart High School, Klaich was the goalkeeper for the Brickies’ soccer team, his primary sport. A Hobart football coach noticed how strong his drop kick was on the pitch and asked him to try out for the football team.
It went quite well.
Klaich became Hobart’s punter last season.
Then his family made the decision to transfer to Andrean, 5959 Broadway, and things appear to be going even better.
Andrean’s soccer team is 11-1, and Klaich is averaging a strong 1.3 goals per game. The 3.9 GPA honors student understands the soccer math looks much better than his football numbers.
He has punted 15 times through five football games heading into Friday’s home game against Highland, averaging 30.3 yards per kick. But Andrean coach Chris Skinner said game situations have played a major role in the distance of Klaich’s punts.
Klaich said he has punted balls 60 yards in the air during practice.
“We always knew his capability,” Skinner said. “He’s a very good athlete who works very hard. He’s only with us a couple days a week because soccer is his main sport. But he’s doing a great job helping our team out.”
Dominating Hobart wasn’t something Andrean was focused on.
Skinner said that in his 11 years as head coach, several years as an assistant and his time as a player for the 59ers, Andrean football has always been a week-to-week proposition.
You focus on the next opponent.
But that didn’t mean Skinner wasn’t overtaken a bit by the crowd and excitement last Friday night.
“They honored coach (Tom) Kerr and the place was packed,” Skinner recalled. “It was a fun game to be a part of, two great programs competing at the highest level. It brought out everything that high school football is all about.”
Skinner said his defensive front was stellar against the Brickies’ offense, stuffing them on first downs and forcing long plays on second and third downs.
Then they brought out a “no-name” punter to do his thing.
“I’ve been around football a long time,” Skinner said. “But I’ve never seen a punter put three punts inside the 3-yard line. Never.”
Klaich is also a good baseball player, hoping to help Dave Pishkur’s state runner-up team this spring. The pitcher and middle infielder credits his parents, Mike and Samantha, for getting him involved in sports throughout his youth.
Mike played baseball and some football and was also a goalkeeper.
Samantha competed in track and softball.
“They always made sure I was doing something as a kid,” Klaich said with a smile.
With the excellence of 59ers sports comes added pressure, especially when stepping onto a new stage.
Klaich doesn’t seem bothered by it.
“There is some pressure, but I don’t feel a lot of it,” he said. “I believe in my teammates and they believe in me.”
That was evident last Friday night.
As Klaich walked off the field after another perfectly placed punt, Andrean defensive players shouted, “Atta babe! Great punt!”
There were high-fives all around.
For once, the punter wasn’t the nameless guy on the sideline.
He was one of the reasons the 59ers walked away with a victory.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

HOBART – Truth is eternal. If something was true 30 years ago, it will still be true today.
This is a true story from three decades ago. It says a lot about two great men my career in journalism allowed me to meet and get to know.
It was the mid-1990s, and the newspaper I was working for had just moved into Hobart, delivering the paper there for the first time. Consequently, our sports editor decided we would write one Hobart football story every day, Monday through Friday.
I was about No. 7 on the pecking order then, so I went out to the old Brickie Bowl during the second week of this blitz. I had seen a few Hobart football games as a fan, and two things were true in my mind.
The Brickies were very, very good.
And head coach Don Howell and defensive coordinator Tom Kerr scared the bejesus out of me.
I was shaking, waiting for practice to end. And these were the days before Depends had been invented.
I needed one.
There was a fence separating two walkways in front of the old locker room. Howell started walking toward me. I stepped to that side of the fence and started walking toward him.
He stopped.
Stared at me.
Then he went to the other side of the fence.
Ghost white, I went to Howell’s side of the fence but stood still this time. Howell stopped walking and glared at me again.
For about 30 seconds.
Then he exclaimed, “Why are you guys here every day bugging us?”
I can’t remember what I said, but I did mutter something.
Howell exited stage left into the building.
Kerr was walking up and had watched this entire chess match. He approached with a smile on his face and shook my hand.
We talked for 20 minutes.
I felt like he genuinely was interested in who I was, where I was from and what I was doing there.
Not long after that, Howell and I were able to make a great connection. So, in the rookie days of my storytelling career, I got to watch one of the greatest high school football programs ever as two legends finished out the fourth quarter of their remarkable careers.
Howell passed away in 1999.
Kerr died Sept. 1, sadly. After several years of failing health, it was time for him to start building his mansion right next to Howell’s.
The two were next-door neighbors all of their adult lives.
“He was very interesting,” Hobart senior Aiden Kasch said of Kerr. “He talked to me on the sidelines. His history, his story, his legacy was everything Hobart football is about. He would tell me to give ’em hell, to kick some ass. He always had encouraging words.
“Man, he lived a good life.”
Both Howell and Kerr were old school.
No, they were chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of “Old School.”
But that did not mean they weren’t friendly and kind.
Except on Friday nights.
Howell and Kerr coached together at Hobart for 32 years. The back of their proverbial ballcard is why both were inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.
The Brickies won four state championships – 1987, 1989, 1991 and 1993 – with Kerr calling the defense. They were state runners-up seven times. They won 19 straight sectional championships. They won 71 consecutive games at the Brickie Bowl.
They won 57 straight regular-season games and 55 consecutive Duneland Athletic Conference games.
Hobart still owns four defensive state championship records.
In preparing for the regional game against Griffith in 1995 – the game that became known as the Mud Bowl – Kerr told me about Hobart’s state championship game against Castle in 1982.
Castle had a crazy quadruple-option offense that made it nearly impossible to figure out who was carrying the ball.
So at halftime, Kerr told his defense to get into the backfield and tackle everyone.
It worked.
Hobart still lost that game on a late tipped pass.
“That’s what we’ve got to do against Griffith,” Kerr told me.
This time, Hobart won, 14-13, on a sheet of mud.
Hobart defensive coordinator Robert Segudovic was a defensive back for Kerr in the early 1990s, winning two state titles and finishing second once.
Segudovic said Kerr had a little Lou Holtz in him.
“Every team we were playing, he would talk about their running back being like Walter Payton,” Segudovic said with a smile. “He would get us so fired up it was crazy.”
Segudovic is in his third year running the Brickie defense.
Kerr stayed around the program after his retirement. I can’t count the number of times he would walk over to me and talk about anything and everything for 15 or 20 minutes.
Always with a smile.
As his health slowed, Segudovic said Kerr would send him texts – things to watch out for in the upcoming game, what players needed to do and so on.
Then, afterward, Kerr would send congratulations on the effort from the school he loved.
Hobart coach Eric Schreiber Jr. has deep Griffith roots, but when he was hired three years ago, he said Kerr was one of the first people to congratulate him.
“I had to pinch myself,” Schreiber Jr. said. “I knew everything about him, what he meant to Hobart football and really high school football in America. He was such a good man. We will miss him.”
Last Friday, the Brickies ran onto the field carrying a flag remembering Kerr. They put TK stickers on their helmets.
All of this and so much more.
Last Friday night on the Heartland Sports Network GameNight program, we honored Kerr and his legacy.
And I cracked a joke that I’m sure Kerr would have laughed at.
I wondered if, now that he was in Heaven, he was able to give his alma mater, Michigan, an extra second in its game against Western Michigan.
Such a thing would not surprise me.
Rest in peace, Tom.
It was an honor to get to know you.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network

HOBART – This is not a typical Hobart football story, the kind that has been around for generations.
Senior quarterback Aleks Tatum’s great-grandfather did not play for Russ Deal at the Brickie Bowl before spending his working years at U.S. Steel. Tatum’s grandfather, father and uncles did not play for Don Howell before gathering at The End Zone after games, filling the place with football talk.
Nope. Tatum’s story began on the other side of the globe.
His father, Chris, was born and raised in Australia. Eventually, he found his way to Anchorage, Alaska, where he met Aleks’ mother, Donna, a Hobart native who was working as a traveling nurse.
“I was born in Anchorage,” Aleks said. “I knew nothing about (American) football or the Hobart Brickies. I was a soccer kid.”
The family moved to Hobart in 2011, and Aleks began playing Pop Warner football when he was 5 years old. But the now 6-foot-2, 210-pound Tatum played defensive line.
The Brickie bug had yet to bite.
“I was still much more into soccer,” he said. “And I started wrestling a little bit.”
Today, Tatum is the starting quarterback for the state’s second-highest-scoring team, averaging 55 points per game. Hobart (4-0, 2-0) is also ranked 19th in the state defensively, allowing just 8.75 points per contest.
The Class 4A No. 6 Brickies will host Class 3A No. 2 Andrean (3-1, 2-0) Friday night in a monstrous Northwest Crossroads Conference showdown.
This one figures to be a fair dinkum affair, as they might say in the land Down Under.
“This is the biggest game of my life,” Tatum said. “This is huge for our community, school and ourselves. I don’t worry about staying calm. I want to take the resentment I have for the other team and turn it into excitement to play the game.”
Through four games, Tatum has completed 45 of 60 passes for 853 yards and four touchdowns. He has also rushed 37 times for 194 yards and four more scores.
Friday will be a date with destiny for both teams.
But the Tatum family has its own date with destiny.
Aleks and both of his parents were born on Jan. 1.
“What we’ve done so far, none of this will matter if we don’t show up Friday night,” Hobart football coach Eric Schreiber Jr. said. “We’ve got to take care of business.”
Schreiber Jr. is in his third season leading the Brickies and is 1-1 against the 59ers.
He has watched Tatum grow into the quarterback he is today.
As a sophomore, the speed of the game had Tatum’s head spinning. Last season, things began to slow down to a more manageable pace.
Now, everything appears to be firing at a high level.
At least so far.
“Aleks is now controlling the huddle. He’s a good communicator, and he’s much more vocal now,” Schreiber Jr. said. “He’s really leading an offense that we have a lot of confidence in.”
Tatum is hearing from colleges such as Findlay, Grand Valley State and Wabash. But there is plenty of football to be played before any decision about his future will have to be made.
For now, his focus is on Friday night.
And for a kid who once knew nothing about American football or the Hobart Brickies, there may be no better place to be than the Brickie Bowl.

By Steve Hanlon
Heartland Sports Network