John McIntyre didn’t really need another reminder that his latest job is going to be a bit of an uphill climb, but the Guerin Prep football coach got one anyway when he reported for work at 6 a.m. Saturday.
A Friday night rainstorm had flooded the locker rooms, and lightning had knocked out the scoreboard. In 7 1/2 hours, Guerin Prep would play the first varsity football game in its brief history.
By game time, however, everything seemed in working order, with the exception of Guerin’s offense. It managed just five first downs in a 27-0 Chicago Catholic League White loss to visiting Bishop McNamara.
The outcome was not surprising. McNamara is the Catholic White favorite, and McIntyre has been scrambling just to put together a program and help his players adjust to a case of culture shock.
A year earlier they had played their football for Holy Cross, but shortly after the 2003 season ended, officials decided to close the all-boys school because of declining enrollment and increased operating costs. Mother Guerin, a girls school located across a driveway from Holy Cross in River Grove, soon announced it would change its name to Guerin College Preparatory High School and go coed.
This seemed logical considering the schools’ proximity and the fact their students already had a few classes together, but the move has not been painless.
“Holy Cross was a big part of my life,” said senior lineman John Pecoraro, whose brother Tony graduated from Holy Cross in 2001. “It was a shock to everyone.
“At first everyone was mad. Then it comes to a point you just realize it’s happening, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Holy Cross’ Crusaders nickname, school colors and logo are out. In are Mother Guerin’s Gators nickname and two new items, a snappy Gators logo and blue, green and silver colors.
Administrators, though, have tried to be sensitive to old loyalties, keeping the Holy Cross name on the football field and using the melody from the Holy Cross fight song for the Guerin Prep song–with new lyrics.
The picture on the game program cover also tries to foster a spirit of unity, featuring representatives from various teams, the band and the cheerleaders.
“Anytime you lose something it’s tough, but as faculty we have tried to convey this is a great opportunity,” said Guerin Prep boys athletic director Tim Carlson, a Holy Cross graduate and a teacher and coach there.
According to Carlson, more than 90 percent of returning Holy Cross students enrolled at Guerin Prep, which has about 750 students. The football turnout closely mirrors that percentage.
“As long as everyone stayed, it’s the same team and nothing really changed,” senior fullback-linebacker Patrick Joyce said. “It’s just a new system.”
Guerin Prep officials hired McIntyre in May. He was supposed to start July 1 but took one look at the mountain that needed climbing and got the OK to begin immediately.
Some tasks–assembling a coaching staff and establishing an off-season program–were routine. Others, such as building a new weight room and football office, repairing bleachers and equipment and ordering everything from coaching shirts to uniforms, were not.
McIntyre, 61, is well equipped for the job. In the ’80s, he led Bloomington Central Catholic to two state championships, and he is a member of the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
He had left a job as an assistant coach at Eureka College after the 2002 season and found he missed football while working as a radio analyst on high school games last fall. He took the Guerin Prep job even though it means he only sees his wife Lorry, a Bloomington teacher, when she joins him on weekends.
“I get to kind of re-light an old fire,” he said of coaching.
A few weeks into his job, McIntyre was shopping in Oak Park when a man pointed at his Guerin Prep football T-shirt and chuckled.
“He said, `That’s a pretty good joke,'” McIntyre said. “`Guerin’s a girls school.’
“I said, `No. We’re serious. We’re having football.'”
Two days before the opener, McIntyre wasn’t so sure. He had set up the new weight machines that morning and then went to a discount store to buy towels.
Friday he would pick up the game jerseys, which wouldn’t be completely finished but would have to do for now.
A week earlier, he had married off his daughter, Amy, in downtown Chicago, which had him dashing from practice to rehearsal to the airport to the wedding to a scrimmage.
“I’m going to try to coach Saturday too,” he said laughing, but with a slightly glazed what-have-I-gotten-myself-into look in his eyes.
“It has been the ultimate challenge. I just hope we can measure up to it Saturday.”
The Gators accomplished that goal despite having just two returning starters on offense and just four on defense from last year’s 7-4 Holy Cross team. They hit hard, kept the game more competitive than the final score reflected and proved that Guerin Prep football really is no laughing matter.
“We have a chance to make an impact,” McIntyre said. “We’re working to put a first-class football team on the field.”
———-
btemkin@tribune.com
