Under the Friday night lights

Autumn is the time of year when small town conversations turn to high school football. Visit any local diner or hometown restaurant,  and you likely will hear tabletop quarterbacks questioning coaching decisions, talking about big plays and sharing their opinions on upcoming gridiron stars. Stop in the barbershop, automobile dealership or feed store, and you will soon be up to date on the latest varsity football scores and happenings.

Just don’t make your visit on Friday night, because those businesses will be empty. Most of the commentators, analysts and fans — along with hundreds of students and their families — will be at the game. From Massac County to Galena and Danville to Quincy, across the rural parts of Illinois, the Friday night lights of high school football reign supreme.

“The thing is, there are so many kids involved with football. Plus, in a small town, everybody knows everybody, and everybody seems to be interested and feels invested in what’s going on,” explains Pat Ryan, director of Illinois high school relations for University of Illinois Fighting Illini football. “It’s a special thing.”

The focus on football is especially significant in small towns for a couple of reasons, explains Kerry Martin, one of the Illinois High School Association’s winningest football coaches, who led Carterville High School to a state championship in 1996 and coached at Marion High School for two decades before retiring in 2022.

“A small town is very much school-centered,” he asserts. “The school represents what is probably the greatest unifying entity in a small town. The activities that take place there are the things that bring the town together.”

Martin continues, “In a big town, schools are important, but there are so many other things that people can do. In the smaller towns, the school is the focus, and so often small communities gain much of their identity from the success of their athletic teams. Many people will relate positively to a community solely based on the success of its high school teams. It’s just [more] magnified in a smaller town than in a city or suburban area.”

The calendar puts a focus on football, explains Jim Muir, who covered high school sports for radio stations and newspapers in southern Illinois for nearly three decades.

“There’s this two- or three-month timeframe where there’s nothing happening, and then when you start the fall sports schedule, everybody’s ready. The way football works is that you have a nine-week battle, so to speak. If you get beat on a Friday night, you’ve got a week to lick your wounds and get ready again. Plus, you have to qualify to make the postseason. That puts a lot more importance on high school football every week,” Muir says.

Football season encompasses the built-in excitement of a new school year, and Martin says games are a sort of kick-off (pun intended) for the academic year. “There’s just a lot of enthusiasm going into the season with a new senior class and a new group of kids ready to write their own history,” the Illinois Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee says. “As the school year starts, everybody has the same record, and there’s just a lot of anticipation. I think that’s just an advantage that football has.”

Muir says, “Everywhere you go in some of these towns at the start of the season, there’s talk about how good the team is going to be, who they have back from last year and who’s going to fill what position. People are always just looking forward to seeing them play, and it’s contagious. Everywhere you go, people are talking about football.”

For Ryan, who ranks 14th in most wins by an Illinois high school football coach and is a member of the Illinois Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Friday nights involve more than those who put on football cleats.

“There are so many opportunities for kids to get involved with football, besides offense, defense and special teams,” he says. “You’ve got the band involved, you have cheerleaders, you have the student section, you have clubs that run the concession stands. When you look at those things, there’s a large percentage of students who are there every Friday night in some capacity. It gives them a common bond, something positive to do and something to talk about.”

The environment surrounding small-town football is unique, according to Martin. “The whole thing is what makes it special. If you only had a football game without all the other distractions, it would be much less exciting and less enjoyable. It takes everything from the students performing in the half-time show, to the announcers, to the cheerleaders creating the tunnel for the players to run through, to the ticket takers and those selling concessions. It is everything, and that’s what makes it special.”

“Friday nights in the fall mean more than just football — they represent community, tradition and pride,” says Daniel Sheehan, athletic director at Monticello High School. “When our team takes the field, the entire town rallies together under the lights, united by the motto, ‘Our Town, Our Team.’”

A successful football program becomes a rallying point for the community and a draw for its citizens. “It’s a reason to gather. It’s a reason for excitement in the community and generates a sense of pride. The kids get it, too. They understand that they are playing for the name on their shirts. For them, it becomes the real deal, playing for their hometown,” Ryan says.

Taylor Bell covered high school sports mostly for the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times for more than 30 years and authored “Dust, Deek, and Mr. Do-Right,” a 2010 book described as a colorful history of high school football in Illinois. He recalls traveling around the state to preview the gridiron season each year.

“It was obvious when we visited some of the smaller schools that football was a big deal, and the entire town got behind the teams — not just the students, the players, the parents and the alumni — it’s everybody,” he explains. “It’s a great opportunity for the community to get some recognition, and it is a morale boost for the community itself.”

“Football is a community event, and if you’re having success, it becomes that much more of an event,” Muir adds.

In fact, in many rural communities, civic groups and clubs check the football schedule before planning their own events. Light poles feature cutouts of uniforms with players’ names, and practically every business window sports a sign urging the team to victory. Churches even host Thursday night dinners for teams in preparation for Friday night’s matchups.

Football is unique. “No other sport is like football,” Muir points out. “You’re running track two or three times a week, you’re playing baseball three or four times a week, and maybe even playing basketball two or three times a week, but for football, it all builds up to Friday night.”

For some places — Illinois high schools like Metamora (where Ryan coached for 30 years before joining the Fighting Illini staff), Rochester, Geneseo, Du Quoin, Lena-Winslow and Mount Carmel, for example — one winning autumn has evolved into perpetual winning seasons — to the point of football success becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, Martin explains.

Bell agrees. “There are some schools that have been in the state playoffs year after year, and you wonder how they do it,” he says. “Every year, they come up with talent, but that’s just what they do. They build these programs by having little league programs, where kids start early and learn what the varsity is doing. Once it gets going, it just starts rolling. As they grow older, even from age 10 or 12, they all learn the same offense, the same defense, so as they move up the ladder, they learn to play the game the way it is played at the high school level.”

“There’s an excitement and an expectation that comes year after year; it’s a tradition,” says Martin. Additionally, those who have success on the football field become almost legendary. Before they became household names in pro football, collegiate competition and elsewhere, success and fame got its start on Illinois high school football fields. Consider this: Dick Butkus, Red Grange, Otto Graham, Ray Nitschke and Kellen Winslow all played high school football in Illinois. So did President Ronald Reagan.

“I think one of the things that high school football does well is that players are not forgotten. People remember the names and moments that occurred on the field. One of the things we, as coaches, try to teach our players is that you will leave a legacy and people will remember and talk about you. If we do well together, on the field, you will not be forgotten,” Martin adds.

Making memories is just part of the high school football experience. Coaches say it builds long-term bonds among players, families, students and even communities. Ryan says in the case of school consolidation or cooperative sports programs, football helps heal the wounds of former long-time rivalries.

“I think everybody realizes that when the kids get out there and play, it’s about the kids,” he says. “If there are two communities on the jersey, as long as they’re rooting for the same guys, it serves the same purpose. When you’re winning games, the old rivalries go away pretty quickly.”

While sounding cliche, high school football is more than just a game. Sheehan says, “In Monticello, Friday night lights aren’t just about football. They’re about celebrating our town, our youth and our shared dream of excellence — together.”

Coaches think about and try to convey the importance of community to their football players. Sheehan says a strong sense of school and civic pride can give teams a distinct homefield advantage throughout the season.

“The thing I always tried to promote is that our stadium is the place to be on a Friday night,” Martin stresses. “And if you weren’t there, boy, you missed out, not just on the game itself, but on something bigger. This is where we come together, where we sit shoulder-to-shoulder and have something in common. It’s more than football, and it is special.”

“For many of these communities, football is just the most important thing in town on Friday night,” Bell says.