September 2010

September 2010 Vol. 4 No. 2

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2 l September 2010 l

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l September 2010 l 3 sisportsconnection.com

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Publisher/Editor Jim Muir

Account Executive Cheryl Hughey

PhotographersChristopher KaysCeasar Maragni

Contributing WritersTeri CampbellJohn D. HomanRoger LipeJames J. Lohse, MDCeasar MaragniJim MuirMike Murphy

Joe SzynkowskiNathan WheelerTom Wheeler

For more information regarding Southern Illinois Sports Connection call Jim at 618-525-4744. For advertising information, call Cheryl at 618-353-8515.

The Line Up

Murf’s Turf...............................20

JALC Journal...........................12

In Focus...................................19

Faith on the Field....................29

Publisher’s Greeting..................6

So. Illinois Miners.....................46

From Where I Sit .....................36

RLC Report......... .....................10

Ask the Coach...........................8

Ask the Jock Doc......................22

14

Basketball Greats1960’s

sisportsconnection.com


Beyond the Game 16Great Expectations 24Role Reversal 32Running A Dream 38Referee’s Positions 40

Features

InMemoriam

16

38

40

32

24


G reetings and welcome to the September issue of Southern Illinois Sports Connection.With the start of a new school year and of course a new high school sports calendar the

month of September is a transition month for us here at SISC. In the coming months we will be focusing most of our attention on the fall sports schedule that includes football, volleyball, golf and cross country. I can speak for everybody at SISC in saying that we’re glad the ‘Dog Days’ of summer are behind us and we’re looking forward to the 2010-11 sports season.

Before we look at this month’s issue I want to take a quick moment to admit a glaring mistake/omission on our Southern Illinois Elite Basketball list from the 1950s. Working with a panel of local basketball gurus/experts we chose the players from the 1950s and felt like we’d covered all our bases. However, when the names were transcribed from a notebook to the Word file that I sent to my graphic designer the name of Frances Florian, of West Frankfort, was omitted. Florian was one of the all time great basketball players in Southern Illinois history.

After learning of the mistake Florian’s name was added to the 1950s list on our website (sisportsconnection.com). I would like to be able to say that some underling made this mistake but, as President Harry Truman often said “the buck stops here.” It was my mistake, me alone and I truly regret the error.

As far as our choices go for the top 50-plus players that we will choose each month, selecting these players from each decade is a subjective process. Your opinion and ours might differ on a few players so we decided beginning in September we would add a write-in spot for readers to vote for a selection that we might have missed.

On the positive side the trek down memory lane remembering former basketball greats has generated a lot of conversation, friendly debates and perhaps even a couple of outright arguments … which is exactly what we hoped would happen. In all, more than 400 votes were cast in August and we expect that number to increase as the months roll by and we get into the list of more current players.

This month’s cover story – Great Expectations – features the Benton volleyball team as they embark on a new season with high hopes and lofty goals. Keep an eye on this team as we wind through the 2010 volleyball season.

We also feature a story on Filip Timmerman, a sophomore at John A. Logan College, who also is expecting to put together a successful fall campaign. Another story that is a must read is a tribute SISC pays to Mark Harben, an assistant football coach at Benton High School, who passed away on June 18 at the young age of 54. In a question and answer story Coach Jeremy Clodfelder sat down with SISC writer Joe Szynkowski (pronounced Shin-cuss-kee) and talked about the impact Harben’s death has had on his team and coaching staff.

And as usual we have the same excellent and diverse commentary that we work hard to provide each month. So, the only thing left to add to this month’s greeting is, ‘enjoy.’

All the best to you and God Bless!

Jim MuirPublisher

Publisher’s

greeting


Question:

Should all high school football teams be entered in the IHSA playoffs?

Brandon Hampton, third year as varsity football coach at Eldo-rado High School: “I’m not for it at all. I think it water downs the playoff picture where it’s not as exciting to be awarded the chance to play again. For years there were a lot of 6-3 and sometimes 7-2 teams that did not qualify for the playoffs. Is it really in the athletes’ best interest for a winless team, in the rebuilding process playing many young kids, to tackle an undefeated team in the first round? Is an injury to these young kids worth that risk in a very long season already and the undefeated team may also risk and injury in this type of game?”

“On the positive side your play-ers get to play one more game, and it’s another week of practice that we coaches would get to be around out athletes.”

Mike Rude, veteran varsity football coach at Vienna High School: “In what other sport in the state of Illinois does a team not get the OPPORTUNITY to par-ticipate in a regional, sectional, or what use to be a district – football is the only sport. Coaches said they were against making the playoffs with a 5-4 record be-cause they would only get a 9-0 team. Now those same coaches are busting their rears to find that fifth win so they get in – and they’re not worried about whether they are going to get a 9-0. I say play an eight game schedule and the 9th game is your first playoff game, give a bye to all teams who have won five games by week eight and let the other teams have a play in game to the state series.”

Al Martin, legendary DuQuoin High School varsity football coach: “I wouldn’t be against it. I think it might help the scheduling problem that so many schools are facing. To be honest, I am not sure if there is a correct answer to this ques-tion. I do think there is more than one way to place everyone into the playoffs and I hope all pos-sibilities are explored. I hope the IHSA looks at the total picture of football. Should the season be backed up a week, should all sea-sons be backed up and would this help to re-organize the summer activities?

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RLC Report

By Nathan Wheeler

Fall sports are in motion and Rend Lake College teams are gearing up for another year of

athletics at The Lake. Whether a sport is a fall or spring

sport is determined by the semester in which the national championship for that given sport takes place. Vol-leyball, soccer and cross country are the three fall sports at RLC, leaving nine sports – tennis, baseball, soft-ball, golf, wrestling, cheerleading, dance, basketball, and track and field – to keep things busy in the spring. Although they are considered Spring sports, many of these teams play in the fall. Tennis, baseball, softball, golf, cheerleading and dance all have fall schedules. In addition, the first half of the basketball season occurs during the fall semester, but we won’t go there quite yet.

For this column, we’ll be taking a look at the rosters and schedules for fall sports at RLC, along with the fall side of things for those spring sports that compete each semester.

Cross Country: First-year cross country head coach Eric Albert-er has inherited a national champion-ship men’s program. More about this can be found in a feature on Alberter located in this edition of SISC. He’ll have his work cut out for him with the men’s roster being made up entirely of newcomers. The top five are Jus-tin Lee of Springfield, Ryan Hersh-ner of Lexington, Ohio, Josh Martin of Monee, Anthony Allen of St. Louis and Bryan Minnich of Park Forest. Ja-

RLC teams kick off Fall campaigns

cob Loos of Pinckneyville rounds off the roster.

The women’s cross country team consists of freshman Sammie Grove (Belleville) and sophomores Trudy Burke (England), Aleigh Eggemeyer (Walsh), Courtney Orange (Millstadt) and Bianca Rockwood (Riverdale). The teams will head to the Saluki Ear-ly Bird Sept. 3; and the Illinois Inter-collegiates, Sept. 17, in Bloomington. October will bring the Greater Louis-ville Classic, Oct. 2; Evansville Uni-versity Invitational, Oct. 16; and the Region XXIV Championships, Oct. 30, in Danville. Nationals are Nov. 13 in Spartanburg, S.C.

Soccer: Back for another sea-son at RLC are sophomores Neil Houlihan (Springfield), Joel Harrison (Mt. Vernon), Griffin Groves (Olney) and Jordan Grace (Hopkinsville, Ky.), who red-shirted at RLC last year. Nineteen freshmen have joined the team. They are Victor Barillas, Ja-cob Butler and Sammy Fuentes, all of Crossville, Tenn.; Jacob Keck of Breese; Nelson Kenne of Westland, Mich.; Jarrid Kraft of Belleville; Alex Larsen of Springfield; Timmy Mield-ezis, Chase Winn and Dillion Pee-bles, all of Marion; Grant O’Dell and Wan Kuzac Wan Kamal, both of Car-bondale; Micah Ressler, Dylan Starr and Tyler Weston, all of Mt. Vernon; Robert Rock of Dublin, Ireland; Cody Shires of Harrisburg; Dusty Whiteside of Cobden; and Ben Wilburn of West Frankfort.

RLC will face Southwestern Illinois, Sept. 2 and Lincoln Land before hold-ing its home opener at 4 p.m., Sept. 7, against Richard Daley College. It heads to Danville Area CC Sept. 9,

returns home Sept. 16 against St. Louis CC - Forest Park, and plays on the road with Lewis and Clark Sept. 18 and Heartland CC Sept. 21. Kas-kaskia and East Central CC will come to RLC Sept. 23 and 27, respectively, before the Warriors go back on the road against McKendree University JV (Sept. 29), Lincoln College (Oct. 1) and Kaskaskia (Oct. 5). The sea-son will wind down with Illinois Cen-tral (Oct. 9) and Parkland (Oct. 14) at RLC, and on the road against St. Charles CC (Oct. 16) and Linden-wood University - Belleville (Oct. 18) where former Warrior Logan Gregg (Harrisburg) is now playing.

“With junior college athletics, you have to expect a lot of transition,” Coach Jim Duncan said. “This bunch is a talented bunch of boys. We’ve just got to learn to play together as a team. The strength of this team will be when each one understands his role and performs at his top level. ... Hope-fully, we will improve throughout the season and by the end of it, we’ll fin-ish strong in Region 24.”

Volleyball: Coach Sara Crews is “nervous” – in a good way – about the 2010 volleyball season. With four returning sophomores in Miranda Bunge (Du Quoin), Emily Doty (Sess-er), top Region returner Haley Evans (Springfield) and Dani Price (Harris-burg); and a talented group of nine freshmen, Crews will have the depth she needs to put her game plan into action. Newcomers are Jessie Engel (Troy), Emma Koester (Evansville), Megan Wren (Harrisburg), Jilissa Payne (Benton), Morgan Waters (Johnston City), Mackenzie Newman (Nashville, Ill.), Amber Mocaby (Pitts-


burg), Nicole Stout (Eldorado) and Ashley Slack (Sesser).

Volleyball starts Sept. 1 at South-western Illinois. RLC hosts Kaskaskia in home opener at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 8. From there it plays a tournament at Lincoln College, a match at John A. Logan, a tri-match at Shawnee with Lewis & Clark, at Vincennes Univer-sity, at Illinois Central, a tri-match on Sept. 25 at McKendree University with Lewis & Clark, and wrap up Sep-tember at Lake Land on the 29th. In October, volleyball is at Iowa Central tournament on the 1st and 2nd, hosts Webster University Oct. 4 and SWIC Oct. 6, goes to Kankakee Tournament Oct. 9 and Kaskaskia Oct. 13, plays in a tri-match at RLC with Shawnee and Lincoln on Oct. 16, and finishes the regular season with four straight home matches against Lake Land on Oct. 18, Logan on Oct. 20, Vincennes University on Oct. 25 and Lincoln Land on Oct. 27.

Men’s Golf: Eight-time Region XXIV Coach of the Year Dave Smith, now in his 22nd season at the helm of men’s golf, will march a new Warriors team into Franklin County Country Club for the first outing of the 2010-11 season.

Returning sophomores include Kade Baker of Brazil, Ind. (North-view), Joe Scholl of Calvert City, Ky. (Marshall County), and Matt Walton of Lancashire, England (St. Bede’s Catholic). A large crop of freshmen include Gage Cummins of Mt. Vernon (Mt. Vernon Township), Logan Murphy of Mt. Vernon (Mt. Vernon Township), Josh Harp of Benton (Benton Consoli-dated) – Harp is the younger brother of 2010 Warrior All-American Jared Harp – Zach Holland of Maryville, Jar-ed Paddick of Mt. Carmel and Samuel Waters of Valier.

The season begins with the RLC Fall Invite on Aug. 27. From there, the Warriors will head to the John A. Lo-gan Invitational, Vincennes University on Sept. 12, the Jim Redgate Invite at Briarwood Country Club on Sept. 27, Illinois State Junior College Champi-onship on Oct. 3, Danville Area Invita-tional on Oct. 9, and Mississippi Gulf

Coast Hilton Garden Inn Invitational on Nov. 8.

Women’s Golf: Coach Cindy Corn and crew will head to Maryville University on Sept. 2 for the first out-ing of the fall season. The RLC Invi-tational is Sept. 7, followed by Kas-kaskia’s Fall Invite on Sept. 17 and the University of Southern Indiana’s Ray Wright Screaming Eagles Classic on Sept. 19. The fall season wraps up at the Millikin University Fall Classic, Sept. 25 and 26, at Red Tail Run Golf Course.

Returning this year are sopho-mores Jessica Pigati (Fishers, Ind.), Sarah Fraser (Highland), Megan Gin-dling (Greensburg, Ind.) and Taylor Landers (Salem). Freshmen are Kirsti Auten (McLeansboro), Hannah Gill (Carterville), Keeghan May (Nash-ville, Ill.) and Gabbi Schuerman (De-catur).

Tennis: The tennis team plays in three events this fall. The Dorothy Mc-Clure Tournament is Aug. 28 at Mil-likin University in Decatur, a doubles tournament at the College of DuPage is Sept. 11 and the Benton Adult Open Tournament is Sept. 18 and 19. Soph-omores Jessica Baker (Benton), Whit-ney Timmons (West Frankfort) and Bethany Toms (Benton) are back and joined by freshmen Chelsea Cross (Belle Rive), Chelsea Flatt (Benton) and Kylie Pickel (Mt. Vernon).

Softball: The softball schedule this fall includes the John A. Logan Classic on Sept. 4, the Warrior Fall Classic on Sept. 11, the Boonville Softball Classic on Sept. 18 and 19, UT Martin Fall Classic on Sept. 25 and the Dupo Fall Classic on Oct. 2 and 3. Double headers are with Wabash Valley at RLC on Sept. 9, at Shawnee on Sept. 14 and against Shawnee at home on Sept. 21.

Returning for their sophomore sea-sons are Brittni Boggess (Carterville), Leah Exmeyer (Evansville, Ind.), Chelsi Heflin (Collinsville), Courtney Orange (Millstadt) and Katlynn Sater (Newburgh, Ind.). New to the team this year are Lyndsey Scott (Wood-

lawn), Katie Belcher (Evansville, Ind.), Annie Borowiak (Nashville, Ill.), Taylor Brown (Vandalia), Stephanie Faulkner (Sesser), Sammie Quisenberry (Mari-on, Ky.), Anne Shaubert (Mt. Vernon), Chelsea Steele (McLeansboro), Han-nah Thompson (Jackson, Mo.), Sa-mantha Watkins (Johnston City) and Katelyn Weaver (Carmi).

Baseball: The fall baseball schedule starts with Mid-Continent University at home on Aug. 28, at Kaskaskia on Aug. 31, Mid-Continent at home on Sept. 4, at Heartland and Motlow State on Sept. 12, at Shaw-nee on Sept. 16, at Muskegon CC on Sept. 18, at home against Kaskaskia on Sept. 21 and Shawnee on Sept. 23, Earlham Scout Day, Sept. 26, in Richmond, Ind., the GRAC All-Star Game on Oct. 3 in Marion, and the NJCAA Region 16 versus Region 24 game on Oct. 9 and St. Louis.

Returning sophomores include Richard Arias (Lynn, Mass.), Nathan Dorris (Marion), John Easter (Blue Mound), Kyle Hudson (Herrin), Zach Labuwi (Benton), Josh Larrison (Mt. Zion), Tyler O’Daniel (Calvert City, Ky.), Daniel Peters (Decatur), Gavin Petrea (Salem), Ryan Quick (Mt. Vernon), Kaleb Warren (Herrin), and Justin Wille (Noble). The freshman class consists of Jordan Chamness (Anna), Raymond Collyear (India-napolis), Nick Dean (Johnston City), Steve Draper (Alto Pass), Andrew Ed-wards (Gilberstville, Ky.), Jordan Fort-ner (Mt. Zion), Greg Guest (Nashville, Ill.), Garret Hunt (Benton, Ky.), Ben Klaustermeier (Edwardsville), Tanner Lockard (Lexington, Ky.), Nolan Ray (Evansville, Ind.), Chaz Short (Evans-ville, Ind.), Jordan Turpin (Indianapo-lis), Mark Uhles (Benton), Dani Vicen-te (Lynn, Mass.), Alex Wood (Marion, Ky.) and Reggie Young (Louisville, Ky.).

For all things athletic, visit the college online at www.rlc.edu/warriors.


JALCJournal

By Teri Campbell

The John A. Logan College volleyball team opened its season on September 1

as the reigning Region 24 cham-pions, and the Lady Vols hope to retain that title this year.

“Our region is going to be tough this year,” said Bill Burn-side, who is in his second sea-son as head volleyball coach at Logan. “Kaskaskia’s program has improved a lot and Lake Land College usually has a strong team so our competition will be stiff. I think we have the talent to repeat, but a lot depends on how we develop as a team.”

The Lady Vols have eight play-ers back from last year’s squad, including all-conference perform-er Krystin Wahlig, a setter from Freeburg, Ill. Middle hitter Holly Schweigert of Festus, Mo., who earned all-conference honors last season, is red-shirting this year due to injury. The other return-ing players are Ariele Gooch from Carbondale, Jada Hollinshead of Farina, Ill., Kylee Inman from Valmeyer, Ill., Murphysboro native Jenny Manis, Bridgette Nenninger from Cape Girardeau, and Olivia Russell from Crystal City, Mo.

“I’ve seen improvement in sev-eral of the sophomores,” Burnside said. “They’ve been in the sys-tem a year so they know what we expect from them, and we’ve had some very productive practices.

As a group, they’re doing a good job leading the fresh-men and showing them the ropes.”

The freshman class consists of six players, including Mary Jo Bushur from Effingham, Marion products Jasmine Garnett and Michelle Lazorchak, Taylor Glueck of Jack-son, Mo., Julie Huels-mann from Breese, and Allison Krips of Dexter, Mich.

“I’m excited about this new group. We have some really good athletes,” Burnside said. “They are a good mix of strong, physical players and ones who are highly skilled. They still need to become more consistent, but they are learning and working hard, and I expect them to progress throughout the season.”

Burnside believes his team is going to be challenged this season.

“I beefed up the schedule this year,” Burnside said. “We’ll be playing in a tournament at Parkland College and one at Lindenwood University. There should be some really good teams in both of those events. I want us to face high-level competition on a more consis-tent basis. Playing high-caliber teams during the season will help prepare us for the teams

we’ll meet in the region and district tournaments. I want our players to feel confident that they can compete with any team they face.”

Burnside said his goal this season is to make it to the district finals.

“We want to win the Region 24 title again and play well enough to reach the finals of the district tournament. That’s one step farther than we made it last year,” he said. “We’ll have to play some of the top teams in the country to get there, but if we want to get to nationals, we have to get past the district champs.”

For more information on Lo-gan’s volleyball team, visit the John A. Logan College athletics website at: www.jalc.edu/athlet-ics.

JALC Volleyball Team Expects Good Season


SISC takes on the dubious task of picking the top high basketball players during the past six decades

each month with the 1960s in September, the 1970s in October, the 1980s in November the 1990s in December and the 2000s in January. Then in Febru-ary we will list the top 10 players from each decade. And as an added bonus in February we will give you the opportunity to vote on the top 10 players from those six decades. That select group will be announced in the March issue of SISC just in time for the ‘Madness’ that will once again sweep through the region.

Finally, we understand that many of these selec-tions are subjective so please feel free to write-in any player that you feel deserves to be on the list. Also, the list of players posted each month will remain up for the duration of the selection process (March 2011).

So, with that said … let the voting continue for the top players from the 1960s.

By Jim Muir

The task of picking the top high school bas-ketball players during

the past 60 years is off to a quick start and gaining speed.

Nearly 500 votes were cast during the past month for the players from the 1950s and we expect the pace to quicken as the months go by.

Who’s the greatest high school basketball player from Southern Illinois to ever lace up a pair of sneakers? That’s the question we’re posing to our readers and we encourage you to jump in and join the fun. We’ve found out in just a few short weeks that folks are pas-sionate about this topic and that only adds to the enthusi-asm.

For those of you who are just joining us on this quest, here’s how things work. First, we had to decide what geo-graphic area our player selec-tion would encompass and quickly decided to basically use the same coverage area where SISC is distributed. Perhaps the easiest way to de-scribe this would to draw a line from Carmi to Okawville and then include everything south.

Next, we determined that

we would include the years 1950 through 2010 and break our selections down by decade (1950-59, 1960-69 etc). An-other stipulation is that this has nothing to do with collegiate career, professional career or coaching career and is based only on the success each player had in high school.

As we pored over names we quickly realized that selecting a 10-man team from each de-cade would be a nearly impos-sible task for the four of us and decided to give SISC readers a vote on the greatest players.

So, here’s how our “SISC Elite 60 Basketball Standouts” will work.

Beginning in August we will list 50-plus players from the 1950s and you (our faithful and loyal readers) will be allowed to vote on 10 players. You can vote as often as you like. Voting can be handled in three ways that include mailing in the ballot that will be in each magazine, emailing your selections to [email protected] or on-line at our ‘new and im-proved’ (and regularly updated) website (sisportsconnection.com).

As I mentioned earlier we will break down the other decades


Herb Williams – Centralia

Jim Burns – McLeansboro

Coleman Carrodine – Mt. Vernon

Jerry Sloan – McLeansboro

Gene Turni – Herrin

Les Taylor – Carbondale

Guy Lee Turner – Harrisburg

Gerald Foster – Fairfield

Nate Hawthorne – Mt. Vernon

Doug Collins – Benton

Bobby Brown – West Frankfort

Sam Ulrich – Pinckneyville

Jack Sutter – Galatia

Richard Rapp – Centralia

Randy Albrecht – Sparta

Tommy Thomas – Johnston City

Ron “Moose” Stallings – Ridgway

Greg Starrick – Marion

Jeff Richey – Crab Orchard

Cliff Berger – Centralia

Terry Gamber – Mt. Vernon

Jack Morgenthaler – Pinckneyville

Billy Perkins – Carbondale

Stan Brinker – Metropolis

Chester Lawrence – Vienna

Alan Crews – Du Quoin

Dickie Garrett – Centralia

1960’s SISC Elite 60

Name ____________________________

Address __________________________

Town ____________________________

Phone No. ________________________

Cell No. __________________________

Email: ____________________________

Or

You can also vote online at sisportsconnection.com

or email:[email protected]

Cast your vote today!Mark your favorite ten players on this page, clip it and mail the page to:

SISCPO Box 174Sesser, IL 62884

Terry Thomas – Benton

Kenny Winter – Carmi

Dale Hutchins – West Frankfort

Ken Smith – Cobden

Clem Quillman – Trico

Tom Whittington – Benton

Wendell Grant – Johnston City

Danny Hester – Mt. Vernon

David Lee – McLeansboro

Danny Johnson – Benton

Rich Yunkus – Benton

Robert Westbrook – Centralia

Dave Roach – Pinckneyville

Tim Weaver – West Frankfort

Bob Crawford – Benton

Chuck Neal – Cobden

Don Duncan – Centralia

Chuck Garrett – Patoka

Gary Sundmacher - Metropolis

Jim Neal – Cobden

LC Brasfield

Ken Flick – Cobden

Peaches Laster – Carbondale

Stan Kirby – Meridian

John Dressler – Waltonville

Ben Lewis – Pinckneyville

Steve Woodward – Metropolis

Harold Hood – West Frankfort

Marshall Stewart – Carrier Mills

Norm Meeks – Centralia

Curt Reed – McLeansboro

Steve Strickland – Mt. Vernon

Steve Fisher – Herrin

Terry Sledge – Mt. Vernon


While the Benton football coaching staff was going through the annual steps to prepare for the 2010 season they were faced with a situation that doesn’t fall into the X’s and O’s of high school football – the death of longtime assistant coach Mark Harben.

By Joe Szynkowski

Longtime Benton assistant football coach Mark Harben un-expectedly passed away the morning of Saturday, June 19 during the Rangers’ annual offseason camp in Rantoul. He

was 54 years old.Rangers head coach Jeremy Clod-

felder was one of the first people to find out the shocking news. He was afflicted with the gut-wrenching re-sponsibility of informing not only Har-ben’s closest family members, but also the young men who make up Benton’s football team.

Below is SISC’s question-and-answer interview with Clodfelder, who, like every-one associated with the Rangers’ foot-ball family, is still trying to cope with the loss of one of their own.

SISC: What role did Mark have with the team and what did he mean to Benton foot-ball?

JC: He was always in-strumental in the weight room with the kids. He ran the weight room like a

Joe Szynkowski, a writer for Southern Illinois Sports Connection, sat down with Benton Rangers head coach Jeremy Clodfelder and talked about the difficult experience, what impact it had on players and the current season.

Beyond the Game(Editor’s Note: This is a copy of the eulogy read by Mark Harben’s daughter Jamie Wilson. Daugh-ters Marci Tarlton and Nicki Jones stood with their sister dur-ing the reading.)

“Our Dad.” So much goes into that simple statement. He was more than just our dad. He was our coach, our friend, our protector and sometimes our enemy.

Our dad was surrounded by fe-males and complained about being outnumbred ... but secretly he loved it. He was the king of the house. If he wanted to go to bed at 7 o’clock, everyone had to go to bed at 7 o’clock. Lights out, television off ... silence. No ifs, ands or buts about it. His word was the law. And some-times we feared his words (well, my sisters did. I held my own with my dad.) But his words taught us important lessons in life: discipline, perseverance, determination, focus, humility … the list could go on.

One that really stands out to us is passion. He was passionate about everything he did in life: family, faith, fishing, playing football, grilling, exercise, fighting fires, his special needs students and coaching – just to name a few.

How many of you have had our dad as a coach? Coaching was a huge part of his life. He was so proud to have coached the girl’s soft-ball team to their first ever regional championship. Two more followed. You became a part of our family dur-ing softball football seasons … so I guess you caould say that dad had sons … and several daughters af-ter all. Every week our dad looked forward to having the football play-ers over to watch game film and, of course, to eat. He always told Mom, ‘Now you make sure to have something to eat for those boys.’ Of course, she did and of course it was always all eaten.

As we were looking through some of dad’s things we realized how sentimental he really was. If you have ever been part of a team that gave him a gift, or you yourself gave him a gift, it is in the house. He


head coach, which freed me up to focus on other things. He was tremen-dous from that standpoint and was a very good football coach, as well.

SISC: How did you find out about Mark’s passing and what was your immediate reaction?

JC: I got the call at 6:53 that morning and one of our coaches said to me, ‘I can’t get Mark to wake up.’ So I threw on my sandals and ran down-stairs…I went in the room and realized that what I was afraid of in my mind had actually happened. So after we went through the process of calling 911 and handling all of that, we got the kids in the main conference room with some of coaches while we were trying to make contact with Mark’s family. You never know with today’s technology…if we had told the kids and somebody put that out there to where one of Mark’s family members could have found out from somebody else but us, that would have been the worst thing that could have happened.

SISC: How hard was it to tell your players about Mark’s passing? JC: That was my absolute worst professional day in football. Having

to break the news to our players was just an awful experience. It was a whirlwind of a day, like a nonstop tornado drill that wouldn’t end. Once we told the guys, the grieving process began immediately.

SISC: How did the players respond to the bad news? JC: Well, once this hit, I got a hold of my mother and wife, who hap-

pened to be up north for Father’s Day weekend. They came to the hotel in

Beyond the Gametruly loved the kids he coached.

We appreciate you football play-ers honoring our dad by wearing your jerseys, sitting together as a team and canceling weightlifting to help prepare for these services. However, as you all know, dad prob-ably would have said ‘you need to be in that weight room.’ Just the other day, he told mom that he was going to show you boys where you’d be playing this fall. He was referring, of course, to Memorial Stadium in Champaign. He had high hopes for this season.

Our dad looked like the picture of health. So good in fact, that on sev-eral occasions he was mistaken as either one of our boyfriends or hus-bands. But few people realize the battles he fought. He was born with partial paralysis on his right side, di-agnosed with diabetes at age eight and he had heart trouble starting in his 30s. Even with all his struggles he never used them as an excuse, just a reason to try harder. Every day we had with our dad we consid-ered a gift. Even the doctors said he was a medical wonder.

Some of you might have noticed a change in our dad the last few years. He and my mom have nev-er been happier. He began a new stage in his spiritual journey. He became very passionate about his relationship with Christ. And now, along with his pitching and fishing books, and his 3-3 stack defense material … you’ll find his Bible.

Mark Harben1956-2010

Mark Harben (maroon and white shirt) was pictured on the first day of the Benton Rangers football camp in Rantoul. Harben died the next day of a heart attack.

Harben pictured with his wife Becky.


35 minutes. They’re both in the medical field, and both obviously women, so I think that was huge for our kids to have the ability to see and have con-versations with some female figures. I think some-times in the nature of our game, kids get caught up in having to be tough.

SISC: What was the main message you tried to convey to your players about how to handle the situation?

JC: We told them that no one should ever have to go through this, but in the end it will make us better, stronger and unite us in the end. You don’t want to use it in a negative manner and you don’t exactly want to use it as a rally cry. But you want to emphasize that the experience will help us deal with adversity. Everyone goes through adversity throughout the course of a game or season. But there isn’t any third-and-six or any situations that put our back against the wall that are going to be worse than what we went through that morning.

SISC: Was there ever any thought to finish the camp?

JC: We let the kids decide and they voted to stay. And I gave them every reason to go home…I gave them more cons than pros about staying. We told them ‘Your manhood is not going to be in question if you decide to leave.’ After they voted to stay, I went back to the hotel room with my mother, wife and several coaches kind of gathered around. My wife didn’t feel very good about staying, my mom didn’t feel good about staying and me and the coaches didn’t feel very good about staying. So we trumped the kids’ decision, but we thought they were very admirable in how they handled the decision.

SISC: What did you learn from having to take that responsibility of breaking the news to your players?

JC: I learned three things. One, there is no manual for how to deal with a situation like that. Nothing can prepare you for that. Secondly, I learned that we have a great, great football staff. We have great character in all of the people who are involved in the coaching aspect of the team. I didn’t handle things alone. I had to have my break-downs, too, along the way. Three, having to han-dle the situation reinforced the fact that I know I can be a leader of this team in the most difficult of situations. I’m not trying to pat my own back, but the players we’re looking to me for an example.

And it makes me proud to know how I and the other coaches handled the situation.

SISC: What was it like as you tried to refocus on getting ready for a football season?

JC: We came back to Benton afterwards and we were pretty active in the funeral. All of the players wore their jerseys and Mark’s family actually asked me to give the eulogy. That’s not something I was expecting but I considered it an honor. I think it was a good thing for our players because I kind of got to address the team through the eulogy. I just told them that Mark would want us to press on and carry on the goals we set for the season. He just loved football so much and loved the kids he worked with.

Joe Szynkowski is a freelance writer for SISC. He can be reached at [email protected].

Harben pictured in the 1973 Benton High School Scarab.


InFocus

By Ceasar Maragni

Upon first blush it may look just like any other street sign. But to Mar-

ion Rushing’s wife Bonnie and their three children it’s much more than that.

Southern Illinois University recently honored Rushing by renaming a campus street ad-jacent to the new Saluki football stadium in his honor. Rushing, of Pinckneyville, is the only Sa-luki athlete to earn 13 varsity let-ters at the university, where he excelled in football, basketball, track and wrestling. After he graduated in 1959, Rushing em-barked on a decade long NFL career playing linebacker for the Chicago Bears, St. Louis Cardi-nals, Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons.

A ceremony was held on campus to unveil the newly named street, and among the large crowd in attendance were

Marion and Bonnie’s three chil-dren Pam, Chad, and Troy as well as his three brothers and sister Ira, Larry, Maurice, Phyllis and most of their children. Also in at-tendance were several of Rush-ing’s SIU teammates. Bonnie said, “It meant a lot to me for his teammates to share their memo-ries of Marion with our children and grandchildren. She called it a wonderful day, saying, “It’s re-ally hard to put into words how I feel about this honor. Marion has always been our hero, and to see him respected and honored this way by SIU means the world to all of us.”

Speaking to the crowd SIU athletic director Mario Moccia said, “Marion Rushing had a very prestigious career and will hold a prestigious place literally on this campus for years to come.” Joe Yusko of Herrin was a teammate of Rushing’s on the 1954 Saluki football team and he’s thrilled to see his old friend honored in this way, “Marion was off the charts athletically. He was so soft-spo-ken and humble. He was always a joy to be around.”

Rushing himself was unable to

attend the ceremony because of his poor health. The 74 year old is in the advanced stages of Par-kinson’s disease, an illness he has battled courageously since age 46. Bonnie will be the first to tell you however not to feel sorry for her husband. “He has never, ever complained over all these years.”

Little wonder why he’s still her hero. I’m pretty certain too that if Marion were able to speak, he would tell us who the real hero of the family is.

I asked Bonnie if her husband was able to understand the signifi-cance of this latest honor from his alma mater, and she said, “I think so. His only means of communi-cating with me now is to squeeze my hand when I ask him a ques-tion or tell him something. I will tell you this though. One of his former SIU teammates, Wayne Williams, had given me a photo of him and Marion together during their play-ing days. When I returned home and described everything to him, he just sat there, then when I showed him the old photograph of he and Wayne together he looked at it for a long, long time, and then he squeezed my hand.”


Recently a friend and I had an interesting conversa-tion. We started talking

about the greatest Cardinal of all time. I argued that most would au-tomatically say Stan Musial, now I’m not sure. Albert Pujols may be about to pass Stan the Man and everybody else in Major League Baseball.

A recent stat revealed that only two major league players have ever hit over .300, belted over 30 home runs, and had at least 100 RBI’s in nine consecutive seasons. I now use this as one of those quickie trivia questions when you want to get a good sports con-versation revved up. The answer is Lou Gehrig and Albert Pujols. Babe Ruth turned the trick eight straight seasons. Currently Pujols already has over 30 homers and by the time you read this will have over 100 RBI’s. When I submitted this column, Pujols was batting a robust .322 and barring a late sea-son collapse or injury it’s a pretty good bet Pujols will make it ten straight seasons with this trifecta.

This surely gives you some ammunition to say Pujols is the Greatest Cardinal ever. I would even take it a step further and say Pujols might be the greatest baseball player ever. He has won

a Gold Glove for fielding excellence in 2006 and he also steals bases. He has swiped 73 in this, his 10th big league season and has 12 this year to lead the team as I write this column. On a recent version of my call-in sports talk show, SportsVoice, a caller also pointed out Pujols has scored at least 100 runs (excluding this season) in eight of the nine years he has been in the bigs. Only in 2007 did he fail to reach 100, Pujols had 99!

As I was putting this column together, I also noticed Pujols is on the verge of doing something this season that hasn’t been done in 43 years. Pujols is flirting with the Triple Crown. The last time it was done was 1967 when Carl Yastrzemski hit .326, popped 44 homers and drove in 121.

So what if Pujols wins the National League Triple Crown in the same year he becomes the only player in the history of the game to hit over .300, blast over 30 homers a year, and drive in over 100 runs for ten straight seasons. You can also throw in the fact that by now he has hit his 400th career homer which means he averaged, averaged 40 home runs over the last decade. Don’t even get me started about on base percent-age or slugging percentage, it’s over the top.

I have heard from callers on SportsVoice that argue Stan Musial played at a time when there wasn’t the watered down pitching Pujols sometimes faces in a league with 30 teams. OK, so if pitching was better then, you would also have to factor in that Pujols sometimes faces a starter and then a team’s best re- lief pitcher. How about the fact that now with pitch counts start-ers are more rested.

Regardless of the arguments, Stan would be the first to applaud Albert and Cards’ fans need to understand we are watching the Michael Jordan of baseball. The question is, will he stay a Cardinal?

Let’s Meet Here Next Time

The Best Card or Best All-Time?

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Points to Ponder

Roger Lipe

James J. Lohse, MD, CAQSM

Stop the Sports Injuries!Keeping Kids in the Game for LifeRecognizing and Treatment of Overuse Injuries in Sports

Many children today participating in youth sports suffer from in-

juries and conditions arising from overtraining in sports. Examples of overuse injuries include ten-donitis, bursitis, shin splints, and stress fractures. Two major rea-sons for the rise of overuse inju-ries are overtraining (increased frequency, duration, and intensity of playing a sport) and/or sports specialization (playing the same sport year-round). Youth who spe-cialize in a competitive sport year round receive no rest from overus-ing the same muscles everyday. They are unable to cross-train or utilize other muscles neglected during their sport. Our goal as parents, coaches, and physi-cians is to provide safe partici-pation in sports while preventing overuse syndromes, which can make any athlete, miss a sea-son rather than a game!

What constitutes an overuse injury?

An overuse injury is a result of repetitive use, stress, and trau-ma to soft tissues of the body’s muscles, tendons, ligaments,

bones, and/or joints without prop-er time for healing. Overuse inju-ries cause pain that worsens over time.

Why is overuse injuries overlooked?

Overuse injuries tend to have subtle or vague symptoms that develop slowly.

Watch out for these red flags:

ü Pain when using a spe cific body part

ü Lingering muscle stiffness or fatigue

ü Trouble sleeping second ary to pain

ü Favoring one side of the body

What is the progression of an overuse injury?

The Four Stages of an Overuse Injury:

1. Pain only with activity

2. Pain during and toward the end of activity as well as afterward but not affecting performance


Points to Ponder

Roger Lipe

3. Pain throughout most activity with marked decrease in performance

4. Pain with activities of daily living

Unfortunately, these injuries rarely come to medi-cal attention until stage three when an athlete’s per-formance is compromised.

Do children respond differently than adults when experiencing an overuse injury?

A major structural difference in children is the growth plate of bones. If chronically stressed or injured the growth plate can be stimulated to close prematurely resulting in recurrent pain or permanent delay of growth.

How do you treat overuse injuries?The preferred treatment for overuse, overtraining,

and sports specialization is rest. Physical and psy-chological rest may both be needed depending on the symptoms of the athlete. Once the symptoms have resolved care should be taken as the athlete reenters participation.

How can overuse injuries be prevent-ed?üEncourage cross training with other sports

and activities

üBuild improved fitness and skill acquisition gradually

üEnsure that the child is playing on appropri- ate surfaces with the correct shoe gear

üProper stretching before and after activity

üRecognize the warning signs of overuse early

The bottom line for youth sports is to let kids be kids!

Dr James J. Lohse is a board certified physician in both family and sports medicine.


By Joe Szynkowski

Undersized and inexperienced, Benton’s volleyball team caught plenty of people off guard on its way to a 30-win season last fall.

Count Rangerettes coach Tony Phelps as one of the most surprised.

“I’ll be honest with you, I was stunned,” Phelps said. “Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled and very happy. But there’s no question that the team performed well beyond my expectations.”

Benton cruised to a 30-6 record and a 2A regional championship with the help of only one senior, Jilissa Payne, now a freshman volleyball player at Rend Lake College. One year later, experience is now the main strength of the Ranger-ettes, who will send seven seniors to the court on a nightly basis.

“The seniors I have are very athletic and they all know their roles and how to fulfill them,” Phelps said. “We will really rely on our ex-perience this year. We‘re not very big …our tallest player is a sophomore at 5-10, but we’ve got some girls who are very athletic. Several of our kids play more than one sport.”

One of those players is senior Sydney Potts, also a top track and field athlete. The 2009 All-South, all-SIRR selec-tion will be looking to build on last season’s 202-kill performance.

“We’re definitely hoping our experience

GreatExpectationsA talented group of seniors combined with a nice mix of underclassmen add up to high hopes for Benton volleyball


School, Pana and Highland. Out of about 20 summer matches, Benton dropped only one to pe-rennial-power Carlyle.

“This summer we’ve heard a lot of comments from coaches about how good our defense looks,” Phelps said. “Talk is cheap, but we’re hoping to prove them right.”

The Rangerettes are expect-ing their summer success to carry over to a tough regular-season schedule. They will host teams like Carlyle and Newton for the an-nual Benton invitational, which the Rangerettes haven’t won for five years.

Conversely, Benton has won three of the last five Flora tourna-ments, which will include smaller schools like St. Elmo and Law-renceville. They will also travel to 1A powerhouse Edwards County, for a tournament featuring teams like Effingham, Olney and Paris.

“That’s obviously why we play in tough tournaments like that, so we can play against teams we can’t play in our conference,” Phelps said. “We’re hoping that the tough-er competition helps us out in the end.”

Joe Szynkowski is a free-lance writer for SISC. He can be reached at [email protected].

GreatExpectations


helps us this year,” Potts said. “With the seven seniors back we feel like we should be pretty tough.”

And senior leadership will be the key, especially when it comes to replacing Payne. She was named to the all-tournament teams at the Flora, Edwards County and Ben-ton tourneys, and she finished last season with 203 kills, 25 aces and 346 digs.

“We’re going to miss her,” Phelps said. “She just put up some huge numbers and she was such a good leader. The other girls really followed her lead and they were just united on the court.”

Phelps’ seniors are up to the challenge of replacing Payne.

“We’re going to miss her a lot,” Potts said. “She scored a ton of points for us. But we’re hoping that the rest of us can pick up the slack.”

“She was a big part of the team,” said senior middle hitter Megan Conner. “But I think we can still carry the team. We kept a lot more players than we lost.”

Murphysboro dropped the Rangerettes in the first match of last fall’s sectional. The confer-ence-champion Lady Red Devils won 25-23, 25-23 thanks to the overpowering play of then-senior Jessica Whitehead.

“She was just a dominant player,” Phelps said of the 6-foot Whitehead. “She was hard to deal

with. We didn’t have anybody her size, so when she was up front we didn’t have anyone who could handle her.”

Whitehead is playing volleyball at Southern Illinois University, and Murphysboro graduated several seniors from last season’s team. Amber Bice will try to replace long-time Lady Red Devils coach Mike Layne, who retired after more than a decade at the helm.

The door is open for Benton to win its first conference title since 2002.

“I’d like to get the conference championship as much as any-thing,” Phelps said. “Murphys-boro is going to be tough as al-ways. They lost some players but


they’ve always got good athletes. I think Massac County is the sleep-er. They’ve competed with every-body very tough in the last couple of years.”

“That would be amazing to win conference,” said senior rightside hitter Natalie Taylor. “Last year we played Murphysboro three or four times, and when we lost to them in the sectional it was pretty frustrat-ing.”

Also back for Benton are setters Dymin Hayes and Molly Whaley, right side hitter Sammi Bybee and libero Paige Hughey. The Ranger-ettes challenged themselves this summer by traveling to three tough tournaments. They won tourneys in Fairfield and Springfield, beat-ing teams like Springfield High

Natalie Taylor (17) and Morgan Corn (11) go up for a block.

Benton Head Coach Tony Phelps in-structs one of his players during their 2010 home opener against Carbondale.


School, Pana and Highland. Out of about 20 summer matches, Benton dropped only one to perennial-power Carlyle.

“This summer we’ve heard a lot of comments from coaches about how good our defense looks,” Phelps said. “Talk is cheap, but we’re hoping to prove them right.”

The Rangerettes are expecting their summer suc-cess to carry over to a tough regular-season sched-ule. They will host teams like Carlyle and Newton for the annual Benton invitational, which the Rangerettes haven’t won for five years.

Conversely, Benton has won three of the last five Flora tournaments, which will include smaller schools like St. Elmo and Lawrenceville. They will also travel to 1A powerhouse Edwards County, for a tournament featuring teams like Effingham, Olney and Paris.

“That’s obviously why we play in tough tournaments like that, so we can play against teams we can’t play in our conference,” Phelps said. “We’re hoping that the tougher competition helps us out in the end.”

Joe Szynkowski is a freelance writer for SISC. He can be reached at [email protected].

Megan Conner (14) and Lindsay Hathcoat (9) go up for a block.

Megan Conner (14) and Sydney Potts (10) go up for a block.

Lindsay Hathcoat bumps a ball over the net.

Sydney Potts attacking a ball.


Since 2003 I have been leading college football teams in sessions we’ve

called “Team Building.” They are primarily discussions aimed at building the culture of the program by developing community among the players and by instilling the values which we want to charac-terize the program. These ideas have also been employed with college basketball and volleyball in past seasons as well as with a few high school sports teams of various sorts in the area. In ad-dition, several other college foot-ball chaplains and coaching staffs around the USA have called to dis-cuss how to employ these meth-ods with their teams and many are doing them today.

Some teams elsewhere do simi-larly, but they use a number of ac-tivities like ropes courses, group problem solving exercises, etc. I have found these to be unnec-essary as sports teams already have an activity – the sport itself. What they don’t have is something which can more directly help them to build community and to instill values. We who serve teams as sport chaplains or sport mentors are uniquely qualified to assist them through team development.

The whole process can be boiled down to a rather simple process. It follows.

Community + Values = Cul-ture

Goals: Build community within the team

Faith on theField

By Roger Lipe

Team Building Processby facilitating the growth of trust and commitment.

Build the culture of the program by communicating its core values and expectations.

Socratic Process:Ask questions for discussion

which accomplish your goals.Facilitate discussion in small

and large groups. Community: Identity à Trust à

Commitment

Identity: Tell us your name, your home

town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

Trust: What is there you have yet to

achieve in football that is very much a goal for this year?

Tell us about a significant sac-rifice you have made to be a foot-ball player.

Commitment: If you could trade places for two

weeks with anyone on the plan-et, whom would you choose and why?

Tell us about one of the most in-fluential people in your life. How has that person impacted your life?

If you could have a three hour lunch with any living person, whom would you choose and why?

Values:What do you want to character-

ize your football program?

What do you value most high-ly?

Championship Teams: Develop strong leadership.

Tell us about one of the best team leaders with whom you have played.

What are some of the qualities you respect in team leaders?

How would you grade your per-sonal leadership with this team? (A – F)

What do you see as important parts of the process of developing leaders?

Session 3 – Sophomores Tell us your name, your home

town, the position you play, and your uniform number.

Tell us about an instance when your leadership was instrumen-tal in your team’s success. (Any team, any time, any sport)

Tell us about one of the most in-fluential people in your life. How has that person impacted your life?

We have conducted these ses-sions with all the players being involved (90). In order to do that in a secularized environment like our university, I have purposely led them without overtly “religious” language. While most of the val-ues taught come directly from scriptural principles, for these ses-sions we don’t quote the scripture references. This removes the tension from the coaching staff and allows me to build relation-ships with the players within their culture. It also deepens the level of trust I have with all the players


and when I later conduct team chapels I am afforded a greater level of communication with directly spiritual language because I’m “inside” the program.

Ideally, the values which shape the program and which are instilled through these sessions are genu-inely held, demonstrated and communicated by the coaching staff. At times we have asked the staff to outline such values and we have built our sessions from their listed set of values. This gives us the best chance at integration of ethos and pathos within the program.

To further integrate sport and Christian values, I use the team building themes for weekly points of empha-sis throughout the season. In team chapels I will speak on the theme and will illustrate from scripture. Often the scripture will be a narrative, sometimes a didactic passage or even occasionally from Psalms or Prov-erbs. The point is to have the players and coaches to hear the truth of scripture related through the same themes which we have discussed throughout the sea-son. In this way they hear the Lord Jesus speaking to them in their culture of sport.

If you would like to discuss how to employ this strat-egy with your team, corporation or small business I would love to talk with you about it. Please contact me via email at [email protected] and we can talk about how to adapt these methods to your group.

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JALC standout Filip Timmerman (right) chats with a Rend Lake College golfer at the Logan Fall Invitational at Koko-pelli Golf Course in Marion.

John A. Logan College sophomore Filip Timmerman, a native of Chile, tees off in tournament play late last month at Koko-pelli Golf Course in Marion. (Logan Media Services photo)


Role Reversal

Last year Filip Timmerman was the only

freshmen on the record-setting JALC golf team and this year

as the only upper-classman is the go-to guy

“It’s a big responsibility, but I’m fine with that. I am more than happy to help the guys if any of them ask for help. It’s only fair since last year’s sophomores helped me.”

– Filip Timmerman, JALC sophomore golfer –


By John D. Homan

It’s all about role reversal for John A. Logan College standout golfer Filip Timmerman.

Last year, the native South American (Santiago, Chile) was the lone freshman on a sophomore-dominated Volunteers team, which won practically every tournament it entered and placed second in the National Junior College Association nationals in May.

Timmerman not only fit in with that bunch, but excelled. He won the JALC Fall Invitational in 2009 with a 36-hole total of 144 (70, 74) and frequently placed high in tourna-ment standings both last fall and spring, usually battling it out with teammate and fellow South American, Marcelo Rozo, for top honors.

His best scoring tournament as a freshman was the 54-hole Tennessee State University Invitational in April, where he placed in a tie for third overall at 208, including rounds of 69, 66 and 73.

For his efforts, Timmerman was presented with the Phil Michelson Award last spring as the top community college freshman golfer in the country.

“We’re glad to have Filip back,” Vols head coach Tom Ferris said in what could be described as a bit of an under-statement. “He’s a talented and aggressive player. He is probably considered the best junior college player coming into the season and I expect a lot out of him. Filip’s leader-ship and experience will be important to our success this year.”

Ironically, Timmerman is the lone sophomore on a fresh-man-laden squad this year. So, instead of playing the role of understudy as he did a year ago, he is now the lead performer – the go-to guy if you will and also the one who teammates will count on for advice and moral support.

It’s a role the sophomore has embraced since returning to school for the fall semester.

“It’s a big responsibility, but I’m fine with that,” he said. “I am more than happy to help the guys if any of them ask for help. It’s only fair since last year’s sophomores helped me.”

The 20-year-old said he was pleasantly surprised when

“He’s a talented and aggressive player. He is probably considered the best junior college player coming into the season and I expect a lot out of him. Filip’s leadership and expe-rience will be important to our success this year.”

– Tom Ferris, JALC men’s golf coach –

Timmerman attempts to drain a putt.


he learned he had been chosen for the Michelson award.“That is a very big honor and I was not expecting that at

all,” Timmerman said. “I haven’t set any personal goals for myself this year. I just want to play well, gain more experience both on the course and in the classroom and help lead our team back to nationals. And this time, we want to win it.”

The Vols won nationals in spring 2009.Ferris said you can’t put into words how much easier it is to

build a team around an All-American like Timmerman.“Obviously, we’re all freshmen other than Filip, so we’re

going to have our share of ups and downs this fall season as the kids adjust to college life. I’m just hoping that by the time spring rolls around, we will be wiser and play consistently bet-ter as a team.”

Ferris said having Timmerman around will ease the bur-den.

“Filip’s our captain. He will set a good example for the oth-ers to follow,” Ferris said. “He knows what it takes to win, is a hard worker and is easy to get along with. That’s a pretty good combination.”

Ferris said he fields calls every week from four-year schools interested in offering Timmerman a scholarship to play his fi-nal two years of college golf.

“It’s just a matter of getting his academics lined up. If he does that, he can pretty much go wherever he likes.”

Timmerman said he plans to major in sports management.“Coming to Logan has been a good experience for me. I

feel I have grown a lot as a person and am look-ing forward to being a leader on

this team.”


From where I SIT

By Tom Wheeler

If you’re a regular reader of my articles you know I am very ‘old school.’ I didn’t walk

three miles to school barefooted in a snow storm; truth is I never walked to school in four years. But I did play in a period of high school athletics where being a member of our high school team was the pri-ority of most guys in school.

But its time I simply sound off, remember this is just an old coach’s opinion.

In the last few years I have been asked about certain situations, like the players who played basketball all summer and then the first week of practice informed their coach they were not playing – the reason, they didn’t want to be the ‘whipping boy.’ Or, the starters who decided in the summer that they weren’t going to play the next fall because they “didn’t like their coach.” And there was the running back that wasn’t going to play his senior year because he never carried the ball, and complained that all he did was block. There was the softball player who didn’t play school ball with her classmates because she was saving herself for summer ball and the kid who had his parents spend $10,000 dollars in traveling in the summer so college coaches could see them play and the senior that didn’t think his teammates put in the hours in the summer that he did so he wanted his whole fam-ily to move. And of course there was the guy who broke training rules and let not only his family,

his coaches his school and team down but himself as well.

Considering all of those situ-ations and a hundred more just like them here are some “Wheels Words of Wisdom” for high school athletes, their parents and for coaches to all think about.

* The four years of high school may be the best years of your life and you’re so busy complaining that you don’t realize it.

* If you hate your coach more than you love to play a sport, then you don’t need to play anyway (wait 20 years and then decide if they were a good coach or not).

* The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence (or another school), but sometimes, when you get on the other side you find the grass is not as green as you thought.

* Play because you love the game, not because Dad wants you to, not because you want a scholarship (but that comes to those with a passion), not be-cause your Mom was a great player, play because you love it, love it, love it!

* Don’t count the times your coach yells at you compared to how he treats others, take care of your business, he is only trying to make you and the team better.

* Believe it or not the coach is going to play those that help the team win and he will not keep someone on the bench to hurt his team’s chance of winning.

* Every player has a role – a role the coach thinks can help the team win games, accept it and do all you can to make your team better.

* Don’t complain about “not getting a chance”, you get a chance every night in practice. My Dad always said “if the light shine bright enough, coach has to see it” which means play well against those starters and the coach will notice your hard work.

* Always make sure you see that the glass is ‘half full’ and look for the good things at practice and in your life, they are there. Make someone laugh, speak to a stranger, pat someone on the back for a good play or give Mom an unsuspected hug. Those are all examples of a half full glass

* Always remember little eyes are watching your every move.

There have been problems like this as long as athletics have existed, its just those four years goes so quick, and when you miss a year you can not get it back. Don’t get me wrong, I still see a lot of good in our play-ers today. An example was at

The Glass is Always Half Full


my brother Wendell’s All Star game in Carbondale last spring. Being asked to assist Bobby Blondi in coaching I had my grandson Hunter sitting on the bench with me. As most players were introduced they joined their teammates in the middle of the floor, When Sesser-Valier’s All-Stater Justin Matyi’s named was called he slapped the hand of all the players on the bench, then Bobby and myself and then Hunter. This might not have seemed such a big thing to Justin but to a 12-year-old future basketball player that was all that Hunt could talk about all the way home.

Hunter’s glass was full that night, thanks to a small gesture by a great player.

That’s the way it looks From Where I Sit!


RLC’s Eric Alberter inherits national championship cross country program

INA, Ill. – With five team and six individual national titles, Rend Lake College cross country has grown into the nation’s premier junior college program. Each year brings with it new firsts, whether it be another title or adding to the record book. This year is no exception. Before runners even compete at the season-opening Saluki Early Bird, 2010 has already been a year of firsts for the program.

Since starting in 2000 under former coach Brent McLain, the cross country program brought home the title five times. The first three NJCAA crowns – 2001, 2002, 2003 – were at the DII level. They won the DI championship in 2006 and last year. This year, for the first time, the Warriors have a new head coach in 24-year-old alumnus Eric Alberter. And for the first time, Alberter will lead the reigning “Kings of the Hill” into the national champion-ship race.

Some might consider that task a nightmare. For Alberter, it’s a dream come true.

The son of Jane and Allen “Mub-ba” Alberter grew up in Belleville and was active in sports at a young age, mostly baseball and basketball. He tried soccer in junior high. That’s also when he was introduced to track and field, “just for something to do,” he recalls. In high school, Alberter played baseball and basketball at Belleville West. It wasn’t until his senior year that track became a serious sport for him.

“I decided about two weeks before baseball tryouts my senior year to go out for the track team,” he says.

He quickly became a key part of the

team, breaking the school record with a 1:54.6 in the 800 and qualifying for the state finals. He didn’t lose a single race until sectionals. Even then how-ever, the will to win was only fueled by his fear of losing, he says. On his way home from the state meet, Alberter got a call from Mike McKee, then assistant track coach at RLC, asking if he would be interested in running on scholar-ship at The Lake.

“Before that, I had been offered small scholarships to Edwardsville and McKendree. I think the main reason I chose Rend Lake was because I still didn’t really know if I wanted to run track for four more years. I had no idea what kind of quality program we had here.”

His decision to go to Rend Lake changed everything. He ran at RLC for McLain from 2004 to 2006, in which time he won four national championships and became a nine-time All- American who broke five school records. His success at RLC led to a running scholarship at the University of Florida where he was a two-time All- American in the 4x400, number seven all-time in the indoor 800 and spent a year volunteering as an assistant coach for cross country and middle distance. Alberter earned academic All-SEC honors in 2008 and graduated with a B.A in 2009.

Rend Lake College, he said, was where his fear of losing became a hunger to win. He credited McLain with pushing him toward that transition and talked about the exact moment when he started believing in himself as a runner.

“It was when I took third at indoor

nationals as a freshman. There were some pretty good guys and I wasn’t high up on the rankings going in to the race. I think on Friday night I was the last guy to make it into the finals. That kind of settled in a little bit overnight. Then I went out and beat some pretty good people and got third. It was a bit of a wake up call. Suddenly, I thought, ‘You know what? I can do this if I just put the time and effort into doing it.’

“Our personalities are a lot alike,” he said about McLain. “He pushed me until I broke. If you want to be successful in track, you have to have a coach that can connect with your personality and train you the way that best suits you. He definitely did that and it worked out really well for me.”

From then on, Alberter’s dream was to run and someday coach others. A big part of that dream was fulfilled at Florida U.

“Every day, I thought to myself, ‘Wow! I’m at the University of Florida!.’ I still can’t believe I went from playing baseball in high school to coming to Rend Lake and getting recruited in track by schools like Florida, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas A&M. It was an unbelievable place to be and an ex-perience I will always cherish and be thankful for.”

He began coaching as an assis-tant under McLain last year, but was quickly catapulted into the track and field head coaching position when McLain announced his resignation in November, just after winning his fifth cross country title. The 10-year coach, athletic director and assistant to the president for athletics cited health con-cerns as his reason for leaving.

Running a Dream


“I had some idea it was coming, but I didn’t think it was going to be that quick,” Alberter said. “There were a couple of different times where [McLain] was in the hospital for days. Looking back, the biggest sign for me that he was looking into resigning was when we were hosting a cross coun-try meet and he was missing his little girls’ swim meet. It just tore him up.

“It was very overwhelming,” Alberter said of inheriting the programs. “I didn’t realize all the behind-the-scenes work, the paperwork, eligibilities, scheduling, meet entries, the budget. I learned really quickly that it’s a lot more than just showing up to prac-tice.”

Although his hands are now firmly wrapped around the reigns of cross country and track and field at RLC, Alberter still has his work cut out for him. With state funding uncertain-ties, RLC officials have enacted a one-year moratorium on international recruiting and reduced the amount of scholarships across the board. Cross country is particularly effected by the moratorium, seeing as how all six individual national champions have been international athletes – Stephen Sambu (Kenya) in 2008 and 2009, Pasca Cheruiyot (Kenya) and Ben Cheruiyot (Kenya) in 2007 and Ian Hornabrook (Australia) in 2001 and 2002. Moreover, the 2010 RLC cross country roster is made up entirely of newcomers to the program.

“Sure, there are some hurdles,” he said. “But we are working hard. I think our men’s team will have four runners who are pretty solid. Our fifth man could come around by getting into better shape and rising to the level of training we do. We’ve got the talent to compete at the national meet, we are just going to have to work hard to get there. We are going to have to outwork everybody.”

RLC’s top five are Justin Lee of Springfield, Ryan Hershner of Lex-ington, Ohio, Josh Martin of Monee, Anthony Allen of St. Louis and Bryan Minnich of Park Forest. Jacob Loos of Pinckneyville and Reggie Warren of Atlanta round off the roster.

“It was very overwhelm-ing. I didn’t realize all the behind-the-scenes work, the paperwork, eligibilities, scheduling, meet entries, the budget. I learned really quickly that it’s a lot more than just showing up to practice.”

– Eric Alberter, new RLC cross country coach –

“I love it,” Alberter said of being the head coach. “I think the biggest kick for me is getting to see the kids get their college degree here and then in some cases go on and get a degree from a four year school. I know every-body wants to be a professional ath-lete and they think they have the talent to do it. But in track and field, if you do become a professional athlete, you are still going to need something to fall back on. There’s not a lot of money in it, compared to pros in other sports, and the careers are short for the most part. I would guess it’s less than one percent of the world’s runners sign a professional contract.”

He calls his athletes “kids,” but Alberter is not far removed. It’s some-thing he considers to be a strength.

“It helps that I can relate to being a college athlete. I just did it so I know what it takes to manage your time as a student – going to class, getting in study hall, sleeping right, and being sharp at practice.”

His track days are now behind him, but Alberter has found a new sport at which to excel. He is an accomplished angler with numerous club tournament trophies on the mantle. One can find him early most mornings on Rend Lake or at a tournament on the week-end. Of course, he won’t say at what spots exactly. That’s his secret.

“When I’m not coaching, I’m usually fishing,” he says. “It’s nice being close to the lake. It’s relaxing. I guess you would say it’s how I relieve stress. You know, I don’t know why I do it. It’s expensive and it eats up a lot of your time,” he says with a grin. “No, it really is relaxing and I enjoy the challenge of finding the fish and making them bite. It’s a lot more than just going out there, parking the boat, and hoping to catch something.”

For more about track and field, and cross country at The Lake, as well as the college’s 10 other athletic programs, visit online at www.rlc.edu/warriors.


Every Friday night during high school football season five officials take the field, each covering different locations and with different responsibilties. In our never-end-ing quest here at SISC to bridge the gap between sports officials and fans we called on three veteran Southern Illinois officials -- Ray Bates, Roger Grumley and Eric Bran-nock -- to give us a crash course in the du-ties associated with the referee, line judge, linesman, back judge and umpire. Our thanks to those gentlemen for helping us with this feature.

Line Judge: Pregame- The line judge’s duties in the pre game

are to check to make sure all markings on the field are marked properly and are within I.H.S.A. guide-lines. Secure all game balls and designate someone to run the balls to officials during the game. To com-municate with both coaches to go over rules and any questions they may have.

Kickoffs- The line judge is always lined up oppo-site of the chains. On the kickoff, the line judge counts the receiving team players to make sure they have 11. On a normal kickoff, the line judge is on the 50 yard line and watches for any penalties that may oc-cur. After the kickoff is complete, it is the line judge’s responsibility to make sure that the team starts their

Referees’ Positions


offensive series with the ball that they checked in be-fore the game.

Punts- The line judge releases downfield on all punts to cover his side between the neutral zone and deep receivers. The line judge covers all kicks to their side and is responsible for any ball that rolls out of bounds and getting the proper spot. If the ball goes out of bounds in the air on the line judge’s side, he will work with the referee to get the spot out of bounds where the ball went out of bounds while in flight.

Line of scrimmage plays- The line judge lines up directly across from the head linesman and straddles the line the ball is on. The line judge is responsible for all spots on runs or passes that are on his side. When the ball is ran or passed on the other side, the line judge wants to mirror the spot of the head linesman so he can give the bench behind him the proper spot. The line judge before every play will check the down marker to make sure it is correct. The line judge will count the defensive players and indicate to the ref-eree if the closest offensive player to him is either on or off the line of scrimmage. This will indicate to the referee if there are at least 7 players on the line of scrimmage on offense. The line judge and linesman are responsible for false starts and off sides. The line judge also watches for any illegal substitutions on his side of the field. The line judge will watch for players in motion going away from him to make sure they are not moving toward the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. The line judge will check receiv-ers on his side to make sure that all the receivers are eligible. The line judge is responsible for all pass plays to his side and will determine if there was any interference on the offense or defense. At all times, the line judge should be looking for any penalty that he sees on any run or pass. The line judge is respon-sible for the sideline he is on and making sure that the sideline rules are followed. The line judge should

make sure that the coaches and team behind him are in their designated areas. Finally, it is important to know the rules and use good mechanics at all times. Communicate with your partners on the field. The most important thing is to get the call right!

Referee:The Referee takes an initial position behind the

offense three to four yards behind the deepest back. The Referee should also be on the side of the quarterback’s passing arm. This position should allow the Referee clear view of the snapper and weak side offensive tackle. Some variations to this position could also include working the wide side of the field if it is anticipated that the offensive align-ment dictates a probable play to the wide side. One key to this would be a very strong alignment such as triple receivers or an unbalanced offensive align-ment to the wide side of the field.

The Referee is responsible for counting the of-fensive players, penalizing false starts, illegal mo-tion, roughing of the passer or kicker, holding, fouls against the runner or a player that is out of the play. Most fans don’t understand that if a player is not participating in the play, they are not free game for a player to charge into, or throw a player to the ground. This player is usually not near the play and is merely watching the action. One example would be the quarterback has clearly released a pass and is just watching downfield to see if it is caught. Another example would be the weak side defensive back that is just watching a play go down the other sideline and does not make an effort to run down the field to tackle the runner. These types of situations are to protect players from injury that

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are not going to participate. These are high school students, not college or profession players that are getting a scholarship or getting paid to participate on every down. Safety is a major concern for play-ers, parents, coaches, and fans.

On a running play, the Referee should assist the Umpire in ruling on the blocking rules at the point of attack. The point of attack is the location where a block opens a hole for the runner to advance through. The Referee is also responsible for penal-izing illegal motion by the offense. One little known fact is that all 11 offensive players must come to a complete set position for one second prior to the snap. If an offensive back or receiver moves prior to the snap it is not a foul if the player comes to a complete set position again for one second, and the action does not draw the defense across the defen-sive line of scrimmage. One exception would be if the eligible receiver’s movement would cause the receiver to break the plane of the offensive scrim-mage line or cause any interior offensive lineman to move or flinch. It is always a dead ball foul for an in-terior offensive lineman to false start by any move-ment that simulates action at the snap or flinches. In high school no defensive player may break the plane of the defensive line of scrimmage. These types of fouls are always dead ball fouls, which mean that the play does not start or run.

On pass plays, the Referee is responsible for any action against the quarterback. The Referee is also responsible for penalizing illegal forward passes.

The Referee is in charge of the game from 30 minutes prior to kickoff to the completion of the game. One of the Referees responsibilities are to rule on all fouls and communicate by signals those fouls to the captains, coaches and the press box. A series of signals are used and approved by the IHSA. The Referee will provide options to the of-fended team’s captains to determine the penalty and enforcement spot for all fouls.

Umpire: Prior to the start of the game, the Umpire is re-

sponsible for approving the game balls for each team. It is customary that the Umpire and Referee travel together to meet the coaches, get the game balls, acquire numbers of team captains, schedule Coaches/Captains Pregame Meeting, review the game start time and relay any change in the length of half time.

The Umpire’s normal position on all scrimmage downs is usually four to seven yards behind the de-

fense line of scrimmage and slightly opposite of the Referee to provide a boxed in area with clear view of the snapper. The Umpire shall count the offen-sive players to see that they have no more than 11 players. A legal formation must have seven people on the line of scrimmage with five of those people numbered 50 – 79. Any number less than seven on the line of scrimmage by the offense is an illegal formation and is penalized as a live ball foul (live ball fouls allow the play to continue). The Umpire measures the distance for all penalty assessments and is responsible for spotting the ball after each play. As a means of courtesy to the snapper the Umpire may ask how the ball is to be placed for the snap. This would be a privilege not support by rule. It is always nice for the Umpire to have a towel for drying the ball, but again, this is not supported or required by rule.

Just prior to the snap, the Umpire shall check for illegal or missing equipment. If observed, it is pe-nalized as a dead ball foul (dead ball fouls require the whistle to be blown and the play not started). The Umpire is also responsible for penalizing false starts and illegal snaps. Once the ball is snapped the Umpire shall focus attention on blocking by the offense. Blocking below the waist is only permitted in the 6 X 8 yards zone that extends four yards ei-ther side of the center and three yards each side of the line of scrimmage. This blocking exception only applies to interior lineman. Lineman must be stationary and have assumed their initial position inside the zone. Once the ball leaves the zone no blocks may be made below the waist. The Umpire should pay special attention to the point of attack in reference to the ball carrier when calling a hold-ing foul. If the running play is outside the zone the Umpire should observe blocking and tackling in and around the ball carrier working from the middle of the field out to the runner.

On pass plays, the Umpire is responsible for pe-nalizing ineligible receivers down field. Ineligible players are those that do not have an eligible num-ber for a receiver, are not on the end of the line of scrimmage or not in legal position to be eligible. This restriction applies until the ball crosses the line of scrimmage. Ineligible receivers are down field when they have advanced more than two yards from their line of scrimmage. While a pass is in flight, the Umpire is responsible for ruling on passes over the middle to determine if they were caught or trapped. The Umpire should not be calling pass interference. Pass interference is the primary the responsibility of the Linesman, Line Judge and Back Judge.


During scrimmage kick downs (punts) the Umpire shall give special attention to the snapper. The snap-per has special protection from being blocked during this type of down until the ball s kicked. The restric-tion only applies when a team is in scrimmage kick formation. One player must be in position to receive the snap and be 10 or more yards behind the line of scrimmage. The Umpire is also responsible for knowing when the kicked ball has crossed the line of scrimmage. This is important when administering fouls for penalties that occur during a scrimmage kick down.

Linesman: The Linesman is responsible for approving the

line-to-gain equipment and personnel that are as-sisting the game officials as the chain crew. It is important that the Linesman mark the proper spot for the start of each new series of downs. The chain crew shall also be instructed on the proper use of the equipment and its position in relation to the field. The person handling the down marker shall only change the down number when told to do so by the Lines-man.

On running plays, the Linesman shall take a posi-tion off the field on the line of scrimmage and fac-ing the other wing official. The same signals used by the Line Judge are also used by the Linesman to communicate when the nearest player is on or off the offensive line of scrimmage. The Linesman shall also be prepared to rule on false starts by the offen-sive and encroachment by the offense or defense, and any penalties in and around the runner. When a player goes in motion toward the other side of the field, the Linesman shall rule if the player in motion moved toward their line of scrimmage prior to the snap. The Linesman shall also move into the sec-ondary to assist in protecting players not participat-ing in the play. If the play comes toward the Lines-man, be prepared to rule on forward progress when the ball becomes dead by rule and make sure the downs marker is moved to the new location.

On a pass plays, the Linesman is responsible for knowing the eligible receivers by position and by number and whether there is pass interference by the defense or offense. It may also be necessary to rule on whether there is a catch or not.

On scrimmage kicks, the Linesman releases downfield when the ball is kicked. On the release, the Linesman shall be prepared to rule on blocking infractions downfield, penalties in and around the

runner, and mark the forward progress… then assist on getting to the ball to the Umpire for placement to start the next down.

Back Judge:The Back Judge normal position is 5 to 10 yards

behind the deepest Defensive Player and on the strong side of the offensive formation. When the of-fense sets its formation the Back Judge should count the offensive players to make sure there are 11 play-ers on the field. The Back Judge is also responsible for timing of the 25 second time period to snap the ball after the Referee has whistled the ball ready for play. The Back Judge shall visibility show a count during the last five seconds so the Quarterback and Coach will know a Delay Of Game Penalty is about to occur.

As the offense set its formation the Back Judge should check the numbers of the players on or near the end of the offense line to determine eligible re-ceivers. The Back Judge will know who is on the end of scrimmage line by the signals used by the Lines-man and Line Judge to relay this information to the other officials. This is very important to all officials to know who and how many people are legally on the offensive line at the snap. It is important that the Back Judge know this in order to apply pass eligibil-ity rules. The Back Judge is responsible for all deep passes and shall be prepared to rule on pass inter-ference by either the offense or defense.

If the play is a running play, it is the responsibility of the Back Judge to observe action in and around the ball carrier and be prepared to rule on any in-fractions. If the play goes out of bounds, the Back Judge is responsible for action outside the field of play, while the wing officials hold the out of bounds spot. If the ball becomes dead in bounds the Back Judge is responsible to assist relaying the football to the Umpire from the wing officials.

On Scrimmage Kicks (punts) the Back Judge is always slightly deeper than the person in position to catch or recover the ball. Preventative officiating will remind the receiver to make a valid fair catch sig-nal and to not advance the ball when one is given. The Back Judge will also be responsible for ruling on kicks going into the end zone.

The Back Judge should be the busiest officials on the field and is very important to the smooth opera-tion of the contest.


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by double digits entering their final 10 games of the year. Southern Illinois was also the first team in the league to clinch a playoff berth this season. It will be the Miners second playoff appearance after an early exit from the first round of the 2008 playoffs. The lone award the team is seeking this season is the 2010 Frontier League Cham-pionship.

Manager Mike Pinto is having his most successful professional managerial season of his career. Currently, the Miners skipper holds the best winning percentage in professional baseball (.686) after leading the team to its best start in franchise history. Southern Illinois started the 2010 season 5-0 for the first time in team history. The Miners set the franchise record for wins (60 and counting) in a sea-son. Pinto has built the best pitch-ing staff in the Frontier League, and the numbers don’t lie. The Miners have the top ranked team pitching staff (3.27). The second best team ERA is 3.61. The all-star break exhibited the talent of his staff with five all-star game pitcher representatives including Joe Augustine, Ryan Kussmaul, Dustin Brader, Mike Damchuk and Jake McMurran. Pinto’s team also is the top defensive unit in the league. Southern Illinois is fourth in the league in team bat-ting (.268) after leading for much of the year. Not to mention, his of-fense saw five position players in-vited to the All-Star Game. Jereme Milons, Stephen Head, Nate Hall, Brad Miller and Brendan Akashian all made the cut. A division crown and a title appearance are top pri-orities for Pinto this season. Nev-

ertheless, his 2010 credentials speak volumes when discussing the Manager of the Year Award candidate.

Without his players though, Pinto’s intelligence would be misused. Jereme Milons and Stephen Head have led the Miners offensively and defen-sively all season and are now involved in possible Most Valu-able Player discussions. Howev-er, these Southern Illinois stars are no strangers to MVPs walk-ing around the clubhouse. Joey Metropoulos is the reigning 2009 Frontier League MVP. The Min-ers are obviously the beneficiary of boundless talent within their organization.

The Southern Illinois Min-ers success is evident on and off the field this season. With a host of candidates for 2010 Fron-tier League Awards, there is no questioning why the Miners are top of their class. Don’t forget the best fans in the land coming out to see their Miners on a nightly basis, no matter how hot their seats may be. The state-of-the-art facility, alongside a gigantic video board in right field, give everyone in the family a chance to be entertained. Concession food that stands apart from the competition and between-inning action like you wouldn’t believe. The Miners and Rent One Park are the only place to be on a warm summer night in Southern Illinois.

The 2010 season has been a historic one for the South-ern Illinois Miners organiza-

tion. Usually when a team is suc-cessful, the team gets a majority of the credit. However, as good as the team has been this year, ev-eryone involved with the Miners has played a major role in mak-ing Southern Illinois one of the best organizations in professional baseball.

The Southern Illinois Miners organization has an inordinate amount of worthy candidates for postseason awards. The team, in general, has earned a great deal of publicity in 2010 with their much on-field success. Currently, the Miners boast the best record in the Frontier League and one of the best records in professional base-ball at 33 games over the .500 mark with a 60-27 record. In June the Miners tallied 20 consecutive wins. The streak was profession-al baseball’s longest win-streak of the season. The winning ways continued as the Miners won their first 15 series to start the season. In fact Southern Illinois was 39-6 entering the final series of the first half before they were swept by Oakland County for their first se-ries loss of 2010. The Miners end-ed the first half with a 39-9 record.

With the team’s 59th win of the year against Normal on Aug. 25, Southern Illinois broke the all-time franchise record for wins in a single season. Southern Illinois is within striking distance of the all-time league record for victories, 68. The Miners have also clinched the West division title for the first time in team history. They led divi-sion-foes Gateway and River City

And The Award Goes To. . . .By: Tony Piraro

Southern Illinois Miners Media Relations Intern


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