“By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong” — Joni Mitchell

Part I — Woodstock | Part II — Orange Sky

Part II will take a look at just one game. If you have followed these teams, you know that Montini Catholic and Marian Central Catholic have played a lot of games against each other over the past 6 seasons. But one game stands apart. It has little to do with the final score. It has more to do with what happened off the field and how that inspired the play on the field and how from that point forward, it inspired a community to ensure that...

Johnny Always Wins

The schools recently severed their ~20 year run as foes in the Suburban Catholic Conference and later the Suburban Christian Conference. This past fall Montini took its talents to the Chicago Catholic League, while Marian Central EVENTUALLY took its talents to the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

But that hasn’t kept these two teams from finding each other, yet again. This year they will meet in the 2014 IHSA 5A Quarterfinals on Saturday, November 15 at 1PM.

Previous years saw a Montini Catholic and Marian Central match-up just about twice a year. And during the 2012 regualr season, the two teams played in Woodstock, on October 5, with Marian Central coming out on top, cruising to a 49–24 win.

So, when the two teams were set to meet, for a second time, in the 2012 IHSA 5A Quarterfinals, the Broncos knew they had their work cut out for them — especially, since they had to travel back out to Woodstock. In a prior medium.com blog post I stated that

Photographing at this school in Woodstock, IL has become one of my favorite places to shoot high school football. The field is dark & dank, the lights ‘hit’ on a very slow wave length or something causing terrible issues with the camera’s white balance (half the field is magenta and the other half green)…you know, technology and stuff. The locker rooms are terribly cramped & a little bit old, it’s caged (it’s actually a cage) and its attached to an older gymnasium. It’s not the worst locker room ever, by no means, but it does leave a lot to be desired. It’s everything I remember high school football being. From the pre-game warm-ups that take place next to IL-RT120 and a parking lot where passers-by honk and yell obscenities to its a grungy grass field that just feels like hostile territory. It’s the bleachers that are right, smack-up on top of the visiting teams sideline that allow each and every fan to here coaches politely correct (to be read: SCREAM at) the numb-nuts who, for some reason, decided to checked-out of cover-2. All of that, every little flaw makes it simply wonderful. It’s real, it’s genuine, its perfect.…in other words its heaven.

Speaking of heaven…

Dealing with death is hard and dealing with it as a high school kid can be terribly trying — they’re coming into their own as a young adults, self-confidence routinely wains, yet the feeling of invincibility reigns supreme. But that feeling of invincibility takes quite a blow when mortality is entered into the equation. In the suburban Chicagoland area it’s usually in the form of the death of a Grandparent. To lose an elderly family member is very, very difficult. But dealing with the death of a classmate, someone your age, is different and equally difficult.

On November 4, 2012, Johnny Weiger, then a Sophomore (class of 2015 — current senior class), lost his battle with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Johnny was a Freshman when he was diagnosed with CML and an acute blast crisis.

Johnny fought. He fought through treatments, medications and a bone marrow transplant. And while this was a battle Johnny’s body could not win, Johnny’s spirit did win and continues to win.

This post is not about winning a football game. It’s about the power of community. It’s about a community that recognized a challenge and helped a hurting family meet that challenge. It’s about how teenagers became aware of the true power of community and how they continue to support the Weiger family to ensure that:

JOHNNY ALWAYS WINS

Because of these efforts, both before and after his passing, Johnny’s memory lives on and the true power of community was instilled, forever, in the minds and hearts of Montini Catholic students.

The images in the video below and the images in this post are a tribute to the collective spirit ingnited by Johnny Weiger and the Weiger family. They are a reminder to everyone involved or everyone seeing the pictures for the first time that one person has the power to make a difference.

These pictures are a reminder that sports can act as a vehicle for something far more powerful than wins & loses. The pictures are a testament to the Montini faculty and coaching staff and their abilty to lead during a time of family crisis. The pictures are proof that, if given the opportunity, teenagers can rise above adolescents into mature young adults.

Part I— Woodstock