If we were to award an Athletic Department of the Year award to our area high schools, Quincy High School may already have the honor wrapped up for the 2009-10 school year.
What the Blue Devils' various athletic teams have done this year across the board has been impressive. They've given followers plenty of reasons to "stand up and cheer." A recap:
* The oft-maligned football program already knows it will play somewhere on Halloween weekend by winning its first six games and guaranteeing the team its first playoff berth since 2003. Head coach Rick Little hasn't quite turned water into wine, but he's changed the culture at QHS and made the team relevant.
* The boys golf team at QHS has long been a power and this fall hasn't been any different. A team effort has led the Blue Devils to Western Big Six and regional titles so far. There's no reason to think the Blue Devils won't contend for a state title as a team next weekend in Bloomington.
* The girls golf program has reached some heights this year, too. The Blue Devils tied for the WB6 title last month and made it through regional play last week.
* The volleyball team continues to chug along. Going into Saturday's play at the QHS Invitational, the Blue Devils had the same exact record (22-2) than they did at this point last year. They've lived up to their preseason billing as a favorite to reach next month's state volleyball tournament. The best for the Blue Devils is yet to come with several battles with undefeated Moline on tap.
* The girls tennis team has become a force in its own right. The Blue Devils already had a solid team before the additions of freshman Kadi Fauble and junior Kristi Rose, who moved here from Georgia. Head coach Mike Terry should have a fun van with him when he makes the trek to the Chicago suburbs for the state tournament later this month.
QHS Athletic Director Bill Sanders, a QHS grad, can't remember the entire school having such a run of success as it has this fall season.
"It's really positive for all of the kids," said Sanders, who is in his second year as the school's AD. "It's really good for the entire school that everyone can see everyone else is doing well."
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At the other end of the athletic success spectrum is Culver-Stockton College. The school made the news last week with Christian Guenther, the school's football coach, announcing he planned to step down following the season.
Guenther's decision to step away shouldn't be a surprise. He won nearly as many games in his first year as an assistant to Chris Tabor in 2001 (six) than he has in the last four and half years as the team's head coach (seven).
He's the latest coach to leave The Hill. There may as well be a revolving door in front of Charles Field House with all of the coaches who have shuffled out of there in the last 18 months.
The exodus started when Brad Hoyt, C-SC's men's basketball coach, and Dan Chapla, C-SC's women's basketball coach, both resigned on the same day -- March 6, 2008.
Since then the school has also watched its softball coach (Michelle Krassinger, who resigned in May) and its track and cross country coach (Steve Blocker, who resigned in July).
The school also made a change in its men's and women's soccer programs when it let go of Mark Thomas last spring in a move it didn't publicize other than a note on the school's Web site saying it was restructuring its soccer programs and giving each its own head coach. Thomas had served as head coach of both programs since 2004, going 21-68 with the men's program and 19-67-3 with the women's team.
The school has also changed athletic directors with Joel Dant being hired in July to replace Rod Walton, who resigned last November.
Dant, a C-SC grad, knows he has a lot of work to do and isn't too thrilled with the current state of the department's programs.
"We have to get our reputation back," said Dant, who played basketball at the Canton, Mo., school before graduating in 1970. "I think we've lost a lot of our luster."
Dant fully intends on putting some shine back on C-SC's programs.
"We want to put a competitive team on any field or floor that we play on," Dant said in the wake of Guenther's resignation. "We also want to have good student-athletes who also succeed in the classroom.
"The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. We don't want to be a school who just recruits players in to put up W's."
It won't happen overnight, but there will be brighter days for C-SC's teams. Maybe one day, things will be as good on The Hill as they are at 33rd and Maine right now.
— dobrien@whig.com/221-3365
