Last year, Pat Arthurs was an assistant coach for Immaculate Conception High School in Elmhurst, a team that made the state football playoffs.
This year, when the season ended, Arthurs was on the outside looking in as the head coach at Holy Cross in River Grove. His Crusaders won only one game.
Still, he wouldn`t trade places for anything.
”One of the happiest moments of my life was when I got the job at Holy Cross last spring,” he said. ”All I`ve ever wanted to do since high school was be a high school head coach.”
Arthurs, a 1975 Western Illinois graduate from Mendota, Ill., put in one year as an assistant at Niles East and 10 more at IC under Jack Lewis before finally getting his chance at Holy Cross.
Last year, the school, which has had a declining enrollment, won a total of two varsity games in football and basketball. This was the Crusaders`
seventh straight losing football season, but Arthurs, as enthusiastic at the end as he was at the start, can find plenty of triumph in a 1-8 season.
Participation was up significantly at all three levels: varsity, sophomore and freshmen. Four Holy Cross players made the East Suburban Catholic Conference all-star team, and Joliet Catholic and St. Viator, who pounded the Crusaders by a combined 121-8 last year, won by a combined 31-6 this season. Five of Holy Cross` opponents made the playoffs.
In the middle of all this was the energetic Arthurs. There were late night film sessions, postgame chili suppers, Saturday morning team masses and Sunday morning grammar school games to scout, usually with daughters Kate, 5, and Mary Beth, 2, in tow.
”I learned a lot,” Arthurs said.
Here are the jottings from his weekly notebook:
IC 20, HC 6
Scouted Joliet Catholic-St. Laurence the night before, went to bed pretty late, and didn`t have any trouble sleeping like I thought I might before our opener. In fact, I was up pretty early and ready to go. It was a funny feeling coaching against IC and it first hit me when we arrived at the school. It had always been my job to greet the opposing school. Jack was there this time, and then he turned us over to my replacement.
The game itself was a real cat-and-mouse affair. We were on our sideline waiting to see their use of personnel before we made our calls. We were a little tentative most of the game and we just didn`t turn ourselves loose the way we should have.
Fenwick 22, HC 6
The flu bug was going around this week and it hit a couple of our athletes pretty bad. Still, we had a good chance to make this game a lot more interesting if we had just converted on a couple of key downs. For 48 minutes, I felt we stayed with them in every other department.
But talk about a bad start! We fumbled the opening kickoff out of bounds and started on our own 6. With bad field position most of the first half, that meant we had to stay conservative and we never really took risks until we were down by 15. You can`t just sit still and say you`re willing to lose by 15.
Jol. Cath. 16, HC 6
Everyone who paid $2 to get into this one got their money`s worth. A heckuva football game. Someone told me this was Catholic`s narrowest victory margin since it rejoined the league several years ago. The coaches and players got a standing ovation when we walked into the school cafeteria afterward for our postgame reception, which made us feel really good.
I told the boys at our Sunday meeting this was a moral victory, but sooner or later we`re going to need a real victory. We gave them one TD and then we got sacked for a safety in the final minute. In the third, we had a second and goal and fumbled the ball away. They also intercepted a pass at their 3.
Marist 21, HC 0
Well, I guess you have to earn your stripes. We had two calls go against us in this game and 14-0 would`ve sounded a lot better than 21-0. The hard part about it was the official who made one of the calls wasn`t in very good position. I didn`t make a big deal out of it, but I did approach him later in the dressing room and he wasn`t quite so vehement about it.
The one thing I did notice is that we seemed to run out of gas late in the game because of the heat and humidity. I think we`re going to have to take our off-season conditioning more seriously. We`re not going to make any compromises now that the season is underway. I read Mike Ditka`s book and that`s one thing he emphasizes–no compromises.
St. Viator 15, HC 0
The floods arrived and we spent the week practicing inside. I`ve been coaching in the area 12 years and (St. Viator`s) Jim Lyne`s been here 24 and neither one of us could remember worse conditions for getting ready. The score was only 7-0 with four minutes to go and we gambled on defense with a blitz. The quarterback threw into double coverage, the ball was tipped by our safety, and their guy catches it and falls into the end zone. Ouch.
A coach told me the other day at a grammar school game that we`re getting a reputation for playing tough defense. We did it again this week, but we`ve got to get our offense going. After five games, I think we`re going to have to make some changes.
St. Pat 48, HC 7
This was our first Friday night game and it was on artificial turf
(Hanson Stadium). I thought maybe that would change our luck, but no way. We had two major mistakes. One was late in the first quarter and the other was early in the second period. They scored TDs off each and the roof caved in.
I honestly feel, after looking at the films, that we`re still making progress. The unfortunate part now is that the score overshadows any gains we`ve made. We`ve got three weeks left to get something together and it`s our job as coaches to stay enthused. The kids will follow. Next week is homecoming. I don`t think there`s a student in the country who doesn`t get excited over that.
Carmel 42, HC 20
Well, we finally get our offense untracked and the defense takes a powder. Maybe we spent too much time working on offense this week. They kept their opening drive alive with a fake punt we knew was coming. They followed that by scoring another quick TD on an interception with a barrage of blockers in front of the guy.
The plus part is we put 20 points on the board. The negative is that we`re 0-6. We`re down to our last two games and we could finish ahead of both opponents if we win. I told the kids we just have to regard the last two weeks as a new season. I listened to Bill Buckner (during the American League playoffs) the other night and he said there shouldn`t be anything an athlete wouldn`t do for two weeks in obtaining a goal.
HC 7, St. Joe 6
Unrestrained elation! That was the only way to describe it when Mike Chiodo`s extra-point kick (in overtime) was good. I had all the confidence in the world he could do it, even if the field was muddy. The best part was that the kid filming our game was alert enough to leave the camera on to catch us celebrating. It`ll be a nice souvenir.
The scariest part of the whole game was watching them go for two after scoring. We won the coin flip and chose to let them have the ball first. After they scored on second down, they tried to pass for two and we put a good rush on them and their timing was just a little off. Joe Orlando ran for our TD and he did a nice job on the play bouncing off a tackler.
N. Dame 27, HC 21
The worst part is that, because the game was so close, I couldn`t get some of the seniors into it the way I wanted. They understood, but I won`t let that happen again.
I thought we had a chance when we stopped their two-point try in overtime. But we could only get a few yards on the first two downs and then threw two incomplete passes. I couldn`t be prouder of the kids, though. It was a miserable day, yet we came back to score two TDs in the final five minutes to force the overtime.
I feel we`ve left a good foundation to build on for next season.
