Fox Lake is a town of pristine lakes and trees, a recreational paradise located about 15 miles west of the Great America amusement park in Gurnee.
It is the heart of the Chain O’ Lakes area, a favorite of boaters in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter.
And, in between seasons, Grant’s football team has become the main attraction.
With back-to-back victories over big-school powers Warren and Libertyville the last two weeks, Grant is emerging as a genuine state-title contender–especially in this season of the eight-class playoff format.
“We haven’t started out 4-0 since 1986,” said athletic director Frank Cittadino, who was the offensive coordinator back then. “Everyone else is looking at those two wins as upsets. But our kids were very confident going in.”
At the core of that confidence is a quarterback named Eric Lemcke, who has accounted for 905 yards total offense and 12 touchdowns with no interceptions. After his team fell to the Bulldogs 27-13 last Friday, Libertyville coach Randy Kuceyeski–who had already gone up against New Trier’s Mike Duda–called Lemcke “the best quarterback we’ve seen all year.”
Lemcke is still trying to fathom the extent of Grant’s accomplishment.
“You can’t really believe it,” Lemcke said. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet. Our coaches are calling it the biggest two weeks of Grant High School. Beating Libertyville might have been the biggest win ever at Grant. Our season will start to get scarier, because now we’ll be expected to beat everybody.”
It begins with Vernon Hills (3-1) Friday night in both teams’ North Suburban Prairie opener. Grant has become a marked program.
“It feels pretty cool,” Lemcke said. “A bunch of us players went to see the Antioch-Round Lake game on Monday that had been postponed from last week. People we didn’t know were coming up to us and shaking our hands. The Antioch crowd began heckling us. When you get noticed, that’s when you know you’re turning heads.”
Grant coach Mark Barczak didn’t want any swollen heads after his team upset Warren. So he hustled the Bulldogs onto the bus afterward and didn’t allow any postgame interviews.
“A lot of the local reporters were angry with me,” Barczak said. “I didn’t want anyone to know about us. I guess after the Libertyville game, everyone knows.”
Grant thrives on a ball-control offense led by Lemcke and running backs Nathan Rodriguez and Ivan Gonzalez. A smallish offensive line is bulked up by 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound rotating tackle Jason Purcell, while the defense features Mutt ‘n’ Jeff interior linemen Ryan Bell (6-5, 320) and Matt Fiordirosa (5-7, 145).
“Fox Lake is still a small town in a lot of ways,” Barczak said. “People rally around the team pretty good. A lot of former players are coming to our games.”
And that doesn’t include assistant coaches Kurt Rous, Tom Evans and Brett Bending–the first two who played for ex-Grant coach Mike Rogowski and the latter who played for Barczak.
“After we beat Warren, people thought it was a fluke,” Cittadino said. “Now everyone knows Grant is for real.”
