Monken has itch to start Metea from scratch
New coach will build football program his way
AURORA -- Metea Valley has zero tradition but also no baggage. True varsity football players can't be found on the campus, though virtually everything else is in place for them to get there.
If you could build a program from scratch, what would it look like? Metea is about to find out.
(Danielle Gardner/Staff Photographer)
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• Two-a-days
The Sun will spotlight the upcoming local football season in each sports section leading up to opening night on Aug. 28. Coming Friday: An analysis of college recruiting.
During Tuesday's orientation session, students wandered the halls of a building that smelled just like a new car. Wednesday marked the first day of preseason practice for a program that expects to draw about 115 freshmen and sophomores this season.
The original shipment of some 140 practice jerseys has been returned and replaced -- Metea was spelled wrong across the chest.
Classes begin next week at the new District 204 high school. The chance to draw up the blueprint and fill in all the details helped convince Ted Monken to leave St. Charles East for what will be an Upstate Eight Conference rival.
"The biggest thing is the opportunity to do something completely new," Monken said Tuesday after handing out equipment. "(In) 1976 my dad built our own house from the ground up. Broke ground, laid the foundation, put up the I-beam himself, framed the house himself. So I've always felt like I've had a little bit of that in me -- the building process."
Monken's teams went 36-17 during his five seasons as head coach at St. Charles East, making the playoffs the last four seasons. He's assembled a 10-man staff, a mixture of teachers and volunteers from Neuqua Valley, Waubonsie Valley and St. Charles East.
They used all 25 contact days this summer and the big-picture goal is to get ready for the program's first varsity season in 2010.
"There's a corny old line that we've used," Monken said. "Yoda said to Luke Skywalker: 'You must unlearn what you have learned.' There's nothing to unlearn now, and so that is attractive as a coach -- to not have to deal with baggage that kids bring from another system or something like that."
Monken -- who caught passes from future NFL quarterback Kent Graham and won a state championship with Wheaton North in 1986 -- doesn't come across as a "Star Wars" nerd.
His family has grown a large coaching tree. His father Bob was Lake Park's head coach for 30 seasons. One brother (Tony) is the head man at Vernon Hills, while another (Todd) is the wide receivers coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Cousins coach at Bolingbrook and Georgia Tech.
Monken, 40, plans to install a wide-open offense with three- and four-receiver sets, as well as a 4-4 base defense.
"We're gonna try to run (everything) as close to what we will do next year with varsity as we can, just to get the kids the experience and the feel for what we're gonna do," Monken said.
This year Metea should have a varsity presence in some individual sports. Athletic director Tom Schweer, a former swimming coach at Waubonsie, knows enough about Metea's talent level in that area to say some will swim on a varsity level at certain points.
"In general, that would probably be the norm," Schweer said. "Our golfers -- which I cannot speak (with) certainty at all as far as what our ability level is -- (will get) a look (and) we'll determine whether we want to play our matches as varsity or JV or both (if) we have the numbers.
"And we have scheduled some varsity tournaments for the kids on weekends so they can pick up some varsity experience if they need to have it. And, again, should the ability level warrant, we can advance into the state series."
That kind of flexibility is the entire point for coaches hired at Metea.
"The fact that you're starting a new program, there's a draw there," Schweer said. "You get an opportunity to do it the way you want to do it, not have to fight a lot of battles as far as: 'This is the way we've always done it.'
"This is the way we've always done it -- but we've only always done it that way for about 15 minutes."
