FORESTER FOOTBALL

FORESTER FOOTBALL

Saturday, January 30, 2010

"Coach Cat" featured at the NIKE COACH OF THE YEAR CLINIC


What do Kirk Ferentz (Head Coach at the University of Iowa), Mike Gundy (Head Coach at Oklahoma State), Pat Hill (Head Coach at Fresno State), Paul Rhoads (Head Coach at Iowa State), and our own Coach Cat have in common?

They were all featured speakers at the 2010 Nike Coach of the Year Clinic in St. Louis on Friday, January 29th.

Coach Catanzaro joined a tremendous number of coaches who presented on various topics relating to the game of football. Coach Catanzaro's presentations on "Effectively using Zone Blitzes" and "Gameplannig vs. the Spread."

Over 300 high school and college coaches from Missouri and Illinois were in attendance at the clinic, which was hosted at the Double Tree Resort Westport in St. Louis.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Lake Forest College to the Big Ten????

Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Lake Forest College among list of schools to join Big Ten Conference


Imagine this time next year the Foresters are in Happy Valley, preparing for their Big Ten Conference opener vs. the Nittany Lions. Joe Paterno on one sideline in his PSU jacket, white shirt, and black tie. On the other sideline, "Coach Cat", in his suit, black and red tie. We might have the best dressed coach in the game, but the Nittany Lions may have a bit of a talent advantage. Now, back to reality.


Apparently one Ohio newspaper doesn't see this idea as being to far-fetched. It seems to be a yearly debate whether the Big Ten Conference should or would even consider expanding and adding a 12th school. One sports writer recently released his list of ten unusual suspects to join the Big Ten Conference. You may also find an interesting Forester fact after reading his article below.

This would rekindle a long awaited rivalry with Northwestern University, who the Foresters were once 5-0 over a five season span at the turn of the century. The Foresters in their history have played half of the teams in the current Big Ten conference, including the University of Illinois, Indiana University, Michigan, Michigan State, and the University of Wisconsin. Though the Foresters' have not played a Big Ten School since 1926, a 0-0 tie vs. Michigan State.

Toledo Blade Article

Connecting Community events






Over the past few weeks, I have had the great opportunity to attend two of Lake Forest's Connecting Community events. These are unique opportunities for me to go and talk to a number of our alumni, parents, and prospective students. The most recent two were in St. Louis, MO and Phoenix, AZ.

Here are a few of the highlights:
St. Louis

Generously hosted by Lake Forest Football Alumnus Jack Carruthers at the Downtown Athletic Club. Over a dozen alums attended the event. In addition, 50 prospective students attended the event, including over 40 football prospective student athletes. We had a number of great schools from St. Louis represented, and we hope that this leads to a great number of applicants from St. Louis.

Phoenix
This event was graciously hosted by BJ and Kim Ungvarsky, the parents of Brock '12. they allowed over 60 people to invade their home on the night of the NCAA National Championship game. In between football highlights, our programming with Admissions Counselor Diane Kanney, provided great insight to a number of prospecitve students, including 15 prospective football players. In addition, a number of current students and even a professor were able to join our alums for an exciting night of sharing Lake Forest College stories and engaging a great group of future Foresters.


A hearty thank-you to all of the alums, current students, and prospects who helped make those two events truly special.

Friday, January 15, 2010

GREAT INTERVIEW FOR ALL INVOLVED WTIH COLLEGE SPORTS

This is a great conversation between Bobby Knight and Coach K regarding how players have changed.

Coach K makes a great point on coaching players and correcting their mistakes. They also discusses how on college teams, you take a collection of the best, and the adjustments that they have to make by becoming a talented team.

I think that though this is for basketball, there are a lot of points that we would like to have our football players emulate.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Happy New Year!!

The holiday season is in our rear-view mirror, and the road a head is full of adventure. Please forgive the car-ride reference as I have spent 38 hours in a car over the last twelve days visiting family in different parts of the country.

While on the road, I had the opportunity to think a lot about Lake Forest College Football, our program where it is, and where it is heading. As I reflected back on this past season, my first as a head coach, I was able to come up wtih a number of bright spots. You will see in the poll at the top of the blog is a survey of the four individual plays that stood out the most to me. One of the great things is that three of the most memorable plays were made by underclassmen who will be coming back to play for us next year!

Additionally, I found myself proud about how we performed in attaining a positive reputation in not only our campus community, but in the Lake County/Northern Illinois Community. There is no doubt that our team was the more "noticeable" this year than in the recent past. I am excited to say that we were involved in a number of important community service initiatives (each of which will have a blog update dedicated to it in the near future).

Academically, we had the largest number of Academic-All Midwest Conference selections in school history.

Our foundation is strong, and as the New Year begins, I am excited about what 2010 has in store for the Foresters.