Chandler: C-G confident

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The Northwest Herald asked members of Cary-Grove’s football team to share thoughts of their experience this season leading up to the IHSA Class 6A state championship game against Providence Catholic at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Today: Eric Chandler, fullback

In order to even begin to reflect on this season, I need to travel back in time to the fall of 2004. At this time the game of football was a new and fantastic vice for me.

I was a seventh-grade boy just starting his first season of junior football. As the season commenced, I grew to love the sport more than any other I ever had played. This love undoubtedly formed from watching the 2004 Cary-Grove football team.

I never had been to a high school football game before the season opener in ’04, but after that I became addicted to the bright lights and high-energy atmospheres. My family and I became avid Trojans fans, attending every game. During that season, players such as Will Yocius and Alex Kube became my heroes, and I dreamt of being able to play like them one day.

Watching that team have such great success that season was more than enough to plant the dream of reaching the state championship in my head. More importantly, the ’04 team turned the communities of Cary and Fox River Grove into football towns that would stick with their team no matter what. Maybe most importantly, the 2004 team and its coaches, set a standard of hard work and excellence that was carried on in the following years.

The torch has been passed from year-to-year, and each year teams learn from the trials and tribulations that the prior team underwent. Our team is headed to the state finals because of the hard work and sacrifices made by all the players during the past half decade.

All this being said, I feel blessed to be on the team that was able to make it back to Champaign. As a team we now feel very confident that we are capable of not only “making it” to state, but will be able to come out victorious against Providence Catholic Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

The past three months truly have been a dream come true, but we will only be forever satisfied with winning a state championship.

I feel nothing but excited and eager to play this weekend, and know my teammates feel the same way. As a team we feel like we are playing for far more than our own aspirations.

We want to bring home a state title for this community, which has supported us with unwavering care. For our coaches who have spent so much of their time in shaping us as players and as young men. For our friends and family who have been there every step of the way. And most importantly for our former players, because they deserve a taste of greatness just as much as we do.