12th annual Central 7-on-7 and Offensive Linemen Challenge sets a new attendance record

Among the 28 teams were 10 local teams, including cross-town rivals Bishop McNamara, Bradley-Bourbonnais and Kankakee. The trio of All-City competitors have had their rivalry tapper off over the past decade and change as the football programs have yet to square off on the gridiron in the past five-plus regular seasons, leaving for a friendly-but-competitive atmosphere when the Kays faced off for competition against each of their All-City rivals Saturday.

“It’s fun because our kids obviously talk to each other and stuff like that,” Kankakee head coach Derek Hart said. “We’d love to play them [BBCHS and Mac] in the regular season too, but it is what it is. It’s just good competition.”

The high level of competition displayed throughout the afternoon from all schools was something many local coaches took note of, including newly promoted Fightin’ Irish head football coach Shawn Lade, who is set to replace longtime Illinois High School Football Coaches Association hall-of-famer Rich Zinanni.

“There’s a lot of good talent on display today,” Lade said. “There’s big and little schools and there’s good players on each team, which is good for the area.”

Showing some love for the trenches

Multiple schools host 7-on-7 tournaments during summer, but Central’s tend to thrive more than most because of the competition for linemen, with events such as tug of war, a bench press competition and sled pulls. The Comets’ ability to highlight a position group that rarely, if ever, gets the recognition they deserve has always been reciprocated by the amount of joy from the linemen competition that rings throughout the surrounding fields where the skill players compete.

“The offensive linemen challenge seems to get the biggest fanfare, or the biggest fan support, over there,” Spooner said. “You can hear them all the way from over here on the football field and they are yelling and screaming, getting behind each other.

“It gives them a time to shine and that’s the important part of football, because they don’t get a lot of recognition and so this gives them another opportunity to kind of get to the forefront and showcase their skills, which is a good thing.”

Gibson-City-Melvin-Sibley’s offensive line took home the first-place finish in the tug-of-war challenge while Lincoln’s front line claimed the overall victory for the entire linemen challenge.

New year, new teams

Amongst the many new additions to the annual summer event were none other than Bradley-Bourbonnais and Coal City, a pair of local programs which are heading into 2022 with high hopes.

The two local head coaches, BBCHS’s Mike Kohl and the Coalers’ Francis Loughran, have only heard good things about the Comets’ annual event over the years, leaving them both to make the decision to join in on the action this time around.

“I’ve heard good things over the years, and then taking a look at the lineups on who’s committed, I wanted to get our team here and play some good competition,” Loughran said. “You’ve got teams from all over the state here and so far it’s met my expectations and probably exceeded them.

“So it’s definitely something we will look to do again in the future.”

That sentiment was also true for Kohl, who brought his Boilermaker squad to Clifton for the first time in his BBCHS coaching career, giving a lot of his kids their first chance since junior football to play against some of their area peers.

“I think the biggest thing that’s awesome is to see kids smiling playing high school football and running around having fun,” Kohl said. “It’s a great opportunity for our kids to play some of the kids from the area and see some different teams that we never play.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to get better and we definitely got better today.”

The ability to see different looks from opposing offenses and defenses was exactly what many of the teams who participated in this year’s event needed after a long offseason grinding mostly against their own players.

“We needed this,” Loughran said. “We’ve been having a very good summer so far playing against ourselves, but seeing these different looks and getting a chance to compete has been huge for us.”