Folks around St. Edward can't remember a time in the school's history when the football program attained statewide recognition, an amazing accomplishment considering it survived a near-death experience in 2005.

Green Wave football had to be rebuilt from scratch after the previous coach suddenly resigned in mid-July of 2005. Several top athletes abandoned ship for public schools. Only a scant few remained.

Youth football coach Mike Rolando, a former Larkin player under Ray Haley and Bob Krieger, volunteered to take the head coaching position when no one else wanted the job. The Wave went 0-18 in Rolando's first two seasons and 1-8 in 2007, a period during which 14-year old freshmen were asked to play varsity football against seniors twice their size just to keep the program alive.

Those players faced "bloodshed" and several left games with concussions and other injuries, Rolando said, but they kept the program's heart beating when it could have coded.

"I'll never forget the sacrifices players like Matt Ardiente, Jim Waclawik, Ryan Eighenhauser, Moises Quiroga and Shane Finnane made by playing four years of varsity football, and I'll never forget people telling us it was impossible," Rolando said. "That helped drive us. People saying we were crazy, that helped drive us. But we maintained a positive attitude and didn't dwell on the negatives. We took something positive out of every game and we built on that."

The fact St. Edward is now a ranked football team under its sixth-year coach is a testament to perseverance, dedication and determination, not only by the former and current players and Rolando's staff, but the entire St. Edward community.

The reward for the slow, steady rebuilding process is a healthy football program and a varsity squad now recognized well beyond the Elgin city limits. However, the 2010 team is not satisfied with a mere poll ranking. These players have their sites trained directly on earning the Gold Division title in the Suburban Christian Conference and winning the first playoff game in school history.

"We tend to downplay the ranking," Rolando said. "The first week we were ranked we didn't even talk about it until game day. We only brought it up then because the kids had heard it from everyone else. It's nice to be recognized as an up-and-coming team, but it doesn't mean anything on Friday night. "