“This season is going to be different for the DePaul Prep Rams.” That was how I was going to start this piece before the IHSA’s announcement Wednesday. Now, that opening sentence seems an unfunny understatement.
I originally planned this article as a preview of the historic upcoming season football. New stadium. New uniforms. New school building. Friday night games. But all our plans are constantly overtaken by events, so here we are.
On Wednesday, the IHSA announced that football is classified a “higher risk” sport and its season has been postponed until Spring. Practices can begin on February 15, 2021. The season will have seven games running from March 5, 2021, to April 16, 2021. There will only be time for two weeks of playoffs after that. So no big state tournament. The format has yet to be announced.
The IHSA issued a new plan for all interscholastic competition for this coming school year. All the details of the plan is a little beyond our purpose here but can be found at the IHSA website.
DePaul Prep head football coach Mike Passarella has been making preparations over the summer for the upcoming season as the guidelines evolved. Summer camp practices have been underway at Horner Park which are now basically over. No further practices are anticipated until September when the IHSA will allow a further 20 days no-contact practices.
“I am really happy the IHSA thought outside the box and didn’t just shut everything done,” said Passarella. “I have been preaching to the boys to do their part. Be smart and we will have football this year.” At the moment, it looks like that may still happen, just in the Spring.
Perhaps the biggest changes, other all this COVID business, are the new school campus and the new home football stadium. This writer feared that football might be on its way out as a high school sport at DePaul. Well, with the prominence of the football field and stadium in the center of the new campus, we don’t have to worry about that. Having such a beautiful new stadium clearly signals a commitment to football and surely will attract prospective students who want to play football.
The Rams will also have new helmets and uniforms. The helmets will be white. The familiar ram horns will be replaced by the new “D” logo in keeping with the rebranding by the school. The rebranding retired the Gordon Tech (Tennessee) orange in favor of a “Chicago flag” blue and red color scheme.
Last year’s team posted a record of three wins and six losses including a brutal six game Catholic League losing streak. Last season was the first for the newly combined East Suburban Catholic Conference and the Chicago Catholic League. The realignment into six divisions didn’t help the Rams improve their record.
This year’s schedule will only be conference games: Carmel, @Leo, St. Laurence, Marian Catholic, @Providence, @Joliet Catholic and St. Joseph. The schedule is tough. Even so, the future is bright. Thirty-four freshman have come out for football. The school’s overall enrollment is on track to basically double in coming years. A new stadium, a commitment to football and increased enrollment will bring improvement. Basketball came ramming back to prominence; football is not far behind.
In addition to the new school, new stadium, new practice rules and new uniforms, DePaul Prep Athletics’ website is getting a makeover. Moving away from 8to18.com, assistant athletic Director Sammy Colon has been spearheading development of the revamped athletics portion of the school website, https://www.depaulprep.org/athletics/home.
The new website will exist directly on the school’s website and boast an updated interface with photos and easy reference to schedules. il.8to18.com/DePaulPrep is still up but presumably will not be kept current. It is still valuable resource for finding results from previous season for those looking for blogging about high school sports, which is always important.
With football moved to the spring, I guess that makes this basketball season . . . . . . . Nice!
