Winning Has Many Definitions for North Football
In many ways, football is a metaphor for many changes under way at North High School.
In August a new scoreboard was installed at North’s Grubb Community Stadium. The old one was overdue for replacement, in more than just mechanical and electrical ways.
Friday night the Polar Bears completed the project when they snapped a 30-game losing streak by rallying to beat Roosevelt. Never mind that the Riders were the home team. The points North is making this year are transferable and amount to way more than the ones they tallied in overcoming a ten-point halftime deficit to win, 21-17.
There have been signs that second-year head coach Sean Quinlan, who also happens to direct the school’s Junior ROTC program, was laying the foundation for success. For instance, last year during the first week of classes each player presented their teachers with a card introducing themselves and promising to “help you make this the best class possible.” And just a couple of weeks ago there was a collaboration with opponents from Johnston on a community drive to benefit the Food Bank of Iowa.
Yesterday at practice the task abruptly shifted from “Burn the Ships” motivation to re-grounding and getting back into the grind of preparation for the next opponent. Blustery winds out of the, yes, north carried the message across town that the little school that couldn’t finally can.
Coach Quinlan watched as his troops jogged onto the field, visibly proud of a group that he has gotten to know intimately since taking the job he coveted on short notice when his predecessor abruptly left in the summer of 2014.
“That kid’s from Burma,” he pointed out. “That one’s from Viet Nam. See that guy, his dad committed suicide last year and that one’s mom died of cancer. Look, here comes Luis. He’s been inside getting academic help in pre-calculus. He came back from picking crops with migrant workers in California just in time for preseason drills in August,” Quinlan enthused. “He had to bring his little sisters to practice with him because there was no one else to watch them. Our student managers kept an eye on them so Luis could practice.”
Senior Eli Repp ran over to remind his coach that he had to leave at 4:30 to get to work. When he was asked to comment on what’s changed during his time at North he said Quinlan’s predecessor was stricter. Stricter than a career Marine?
“Yeah, when I was a sophomore I had to miss a practice because we were moving,” Repp remembers. “Coach said I couldn’t play because of that.”
Quinlan recognizes that many students at North are hindered by circumstances beyond their control (“moving,” for instance, is often a euphemism for eviction) and he adapts. Consequently, player retention is way up and ineligibilities are way down. Supports are in place for the whole student, not just the football player.
The team leaders on the field are seniors Noah Lane and Brad Warren. Between them they scored the touchdowns last week. But given the opportunity to talk about their success they didn’t have much to say. They just smiled a lot. “Organized” was the one word that did keep popping up when they were pressed for explanations of how they and Coach Quinlan finally accomplished what has been so elusive at North.
Quinlan says he loves his players but he doesn’t need to. It shows in ways unique to the circumstances faced by each member of the team. He played and coached football during his career in the Marines and he knows a thing or two about training boys into men which, he emphasizes, is why he wanted this job, not to build an impressive log of wins versus losses.
“Ninety percent of the team comes from single-parent households,” he said as the team assembled to get back to work. “They are family for each other.”
Another senior, Quinten Kamerick-Legg, came to Quinlan three weeks into the season and said he was sorry but he couldn’t continue because his part-time job was going to have to become fulltime to help out at home. So he missed out on last Friday night but there he was at practice Monday because Coach Quinlan sought him out at school yesterday to insist that he suit up this week for Senior Night.
At the start of the season the North helmets were plain white. In week two a stripe was added down the middle, in week three a block ‘N’ on the side. Then it was an American flag decal on the back. They were all intended as symbols of a transformation in progress. Last week every player was issued a black t-shirt with “Burn the Ships” emblazoned on the back, a reference to 16th century Spanish Conquistador Hernando Cortez who sailed to Mexico to plunder the Aztec empire. “Burn the ships,” he ordered his men, meaning the ones they arrived in. Their only way out would be to take the Aztec fleet and make it their own. And that’s what they did. So Friday night Quinlan’s team not only erased some history, they repeated some, too. His motivational ploy worked and the Polar Bears finally sailed home triumphant.
The shorthand language of sports is statistics. But this week at North the only number that matters is 1. It is suddenly > 30 in the wake of a victory as sweet as a gulp of cool water at the end of a long trek in the desert. Winning seasons and playoff berths and championships are universal goals and worthy of pursuit, but rarity carries a value all its own. Who is richer, the one with wealth so vast it compounds automatically or the one who digs long and barehanded for rumored treasure and finally finds it?
30, by the way, is journalism code for The End. The story of North’s long losing streak in football is over. There’s a new scoreboard lighting up on the north side of town.
