"Big Easy" Next Coaching Stop for Tolzien; Jacobson Wins District 214 Award
Zach Monaghan Has Write Stuff; More History for Scott Hennig at Geneva; MSL on MVFC 40th Anniversary Team; Hersey, Barrington Girls Hoops Notes
Scott Tolzien’s new NFL job in “The Big Easy” won’t be easy.
The former Fremd star and NFL quarterback is going to be the quarterbacks coach for the New Orleans Saints and new head coach Kellen Moore, according to a report last week by Ian Rapaport of the NFL Network and NFL.com.
The Saints had not officially announced Tolzien’s hiring as of February 24.
Tolzien and Moore were on the coaching staff of the Dallas Cowboys and Rapaport called Tolzien “a rising young coach and a key hire for New Orleans” on Twitter/X.
Tolzien was an assistant while Moore was the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator from 2020-22. After Moore left for one-year stints with the LA Chargers and Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, Tolzien was promoted to quarterbacks coach in Dallas and was lauded for helping Dak Prescott throw a career-high 36 touchdowns and just 9 interceptions in 2023.
The Saints are coming off a 5-12 season as veteran Derek Carr, who turns 34 on March 28, started 10 games. Rookie Spencer Rattler started 6 games.
Tolzien was the Daily Herald all-area co-captain with St. Viator quarterback Jared Funk in 2005. He worked his way up the depth chart at Wisconsin to become a two-year starter and winner of the Johnny Unitas Award in leading the Badgers to a Rose Bowl appearance. He played in 10 NFL games with Green Bay and Indianapolis from 2013-17.
“Jake” Wins District 214 Distinguished Service Award
The Daily Herald’s great Bob Frisk wrote a column in the spring of 1981 on Dave Jacobson making the unique transition from a colleague covering high school sports to a student teacher and volunteer assistant coach for Marcia Krysh as Elk Grove’s girls basketball team was headed toward a state championship that season.
Jacobson would go on to a distinguished career at Prospect as a math teacher and successful softball coach. And the volunteer work Jacobson continues to do in the District 214 Community Education Center as a math tutor earned him the honor of the district’s Distinguished Service Award, which he received last week.
Jacobson continues to work at high school events for VIP Photography.
Monaghan Finds Write Stuff Through Basketball
Former Fremd basketball star Zach Monaghan recently wrapped up an eight-year professional career overseas. But Monaghan is far from through with basketball and athletics after playing in Spain, Bulgaria and Belgium.
Monaghan has started “The Basketball Baby, LLC,” which includes children’s books he has written and illustrated geared toward kids ages 4-12. Monaghan’s book “The Basketball Baby” captures the importance of hard work toward chasing dreams and the flagship character is a basketball baby wearing a diaper.
“The Basketball Baby” series also has four early-education learning workbooks for basketball, baseball, football and soccer. His website also has free learning worksheets that can be downloaded for ABC’s, math and basketball skills.
Monaghan was a two-time Daily Herald all-area pick and the Cook County captain in 2011. He played at South Dakota State and Minnesota State before embarking on his pro career.
More History for Hennig at Geneva
Scott Hennig, who started for Hoffman Estates on Bill Wandro’s 2003 Class AA basketball sectional finalist, has been part of some historic moments in the Geneva boys program as an assistant and head coach.
This year’s team heads into the postseason at 26-4 with an accomplishment that had not occurred in 62 years with an undefeated conference record at 14-0 in the DuKane. The 1962-63 team under Hall of Famer Mel Johnson finished 30-3 overall and played in the first state tournament at the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall (now State Farm Center), where it lost 57-50 in the single-class quarterfinals to eventual champion Carver.
Hennig also passed the 150-victory mark in his eighth season and is 160-80 overall. His 2019 supersectional team had a school-record 32 wins in 34 games and he was an assistant coach to Phil Ralston on the 2015 team that was 30-5 and claimed the program’s only state trophy when it finished fourth in 4A.
Geneva is on a 9-game winning streak since consecutive losses to Antioch and West Aurora and is the No. 2 seed behind Glenbard West in the St. Charles East sectional.
MSL Trio on Missouri Valley Football Conference 40th Anniversary Team
The Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC) had more than 2,000 fans vote for its 40th anniversary team. Three players from the MSL - Barrington’s Josh Babicz (North Dakota State TE) and Ben LeCompte (North Dakota State P) and Conant’s Russ Michna (Western Illinois QB) - were among the nearly 130 players selected.
Michna was a two-time Daily Herald All-Area quarterback who graduated from Conant in 1999 and was a two-time offensive player of the year in 2002-03 at Western when the MVFC was still known as the Gateway Conference. Michna spent time on the St. Louis Rams practice squad, played in the Canadian Football League and had a long and successful stint in arena football. He was one of 12 quarterbacks chosen along with Kurt Warner (Northern Iowa) and Carson Wentz and Trey Lance of North Dakota State).
Babicz was a 2016 Daily Herald All-Area pick who was also a volleyball standout at Barrington. After his success at national power North Dakota State, he spent time on the practice squads of the Carolina Panthers and Green Bay Packers. Also selected among the 12 tight ends were McHenry’s Robert Tonyan (Indiana State), whose NFL career includes stints with the Bears and Packers, and Dallas Goedert (South Dakota State), who was part of the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
LeCompte made the 2010 Daily Herald All-Area team as a punter-kicker but he also was a standout defensive back who had a then-single game Barrington record of 3 interceptions. LeCompte was a two-time All-America punter and part of five FCS national championship teams at North Dakota State and spent time in Bears training camp in 2016. He became the senior associate athletic director and chief revenue officer at South Dakota State in March 2024.
Other notable selections who had successful NFL careers were four Western Illinois products in wide receiver Don Beebe (Kaneland), linebacker Bart Scott, defensive back Rodney Harrison (Marian Catholic) and then defensive back turned NFL linebacker Bryan Cox (East St. Louis). Illinois State running back James Robinson, who rushed for 1,070 yards as a rookie with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2020, played at Rockford Lutheran for former Elk Grove head coach Bruce Bazsali.
Hersey Girls Hoops Hope Timing is Right
The third-seeded Hersey (21-11) girls get a shot to avenge their only two MSL East losses when they meet No. 2 Prospect (26-7) in tonight’s Class 4A second semifinal of the Barrington sectional. MSL champion and top-seed Fremd (26-5) meets No. 5 Rolling Meadows (22-8) in the first semifinal at 6 p.m.
Hersey’s 56-29 Larkin regional final win over Barrington was its sixth in a row and seventh in eight games since it lost 47-35 to Prospect and standout Alli Linke. The first matchup in early December saw the Knights rally in the fourth quarter to win 33-29.
“I feel like we’re on the same page and playing as a team and not for ourselves,” said senior guard-forward Maddy Drury. “For me it’s my last year and I’m playing for the seniors and the whole team.”
Senior forward Kiki Craft was one of four players with sparkplug guard Kate Donovan and sophomores Emily Hany and Sadie Marks to score 11 points apiece. Drury added 8 and a couple of big first-half 3-pointers and freshmen Lexi Miyares (4 points) and Etta Fischer (4 rebounds) provided key minutes for the Huskies’ fullcourt pressure defense.
“Whoever it is, it doesn’t have to be one person,” Craft said. “Our confidence level has risen a lot and we have a ton of younger kids stepping up. It’s really awesome how everyone is stepping up.”
Second-year Hersey coach Courtney Ludois said work put in to improve the outside shooting has added to the confidence of a balanced group.
“This is what we were hoping for in the postseason and it’s nice to see them rewarded for all their work,” Ludois said. “We have another familiar opponent and we’re excited for another shot at them. We know we can hang with them and hopefully we can get over the hump.”
Fillies Look to Future
A tale of two halves was what Barrington coach Babbi Barreiro called “the tale of our whole season” after it lost to Hersey for the third time 56-29 in the Larkin regional final.
The best of times was a strong 14-3 outburst in the first seven minutes of the second half. Unfortunately for the Fillies there was too much ground to overcome after falling behind 26-4 early in the second quarter and 41-11 at halftime.
“We play great for a few minutes and then we don’t play great for a few minutes,” Barreiro said after the Fillies finished 15-17. “We keep trying to get this team to believe they’re capable and in the third quarter they showed they’re capable.”
Particularly senior Ashley Mahlum and sophomore Lily Richmond with 10 points and 6 rebounds apiece. Sophomore Mel Bongiorno had 5 points in the third-quarter surge.
“Richmond did a really nice job throughout the whole game,” Barreiro said. “We had a really nice group of seniors and it’s hard to see them go. That’s the hardest part of coaching is saying goodbye to the seniors.”
And Barreiro hopes the three sophomore starters in Richmond, Bongiorno and Isla Koertner and two of the first players off the bench, juniors Maddie Anderle and Simra Alam, can turn a tough lesson into a different tale next season.
“We have to become more consistent,” Barreiro said. “Hopefully the young kids who played and the kids sitting on the bench today learned that lesson.”
Barrington’s Ojuri “Homeward Bound” to North Dakota State
Sam Ojuri went from All-Area running back at Barrington in 2008 to starring on three FCS national championship teams at North Dakota State from 2011-13. Now Ojuri is coming back to his alma mater to coach the running backs after five years in the same position on the Illinois State staff.
"This has come full circle for Sam," said NDSU head coach Tim Polasek on the school’s athletic website. "I am extremely excited to bring back a former Bison. Sam was an unbelievable player and is someone who can fully prepare and mentor our running backs."
Ojuri led NDSU in rushing during the title seasons of 2011-13 and is fourth in career rushing yards (3,694), eighth in all-purpose yards (4,023) and in the top 10 for rushing touchdowns (35). He was an all-MVFC pick as a senior when he rushed for a career-high 1,398 yards.
Ojuri spent three seasons in the Canadian Football League with Hamilton, Saskatchewan and the BC Lions before starting his coaching career in 2017 as an assistant at Elgin High School. He also was a running backs coach at Wisconsin-Stevens Point for a year and and a graduate assistant with tight ends and fullbacks for two years at Wyoming.
Wheeling’s Owens Part of Galesburg History
Evan Massey retired from Galesburg last year as the third-winningest girls basketball coach in IHSA history with 1,018 in 46 seasons. But he is staying busy with a blog on high school basketball and sports with a significant focus on the Western Big 6 Conference area that includes the Quad Cities and Quincy.
Massey’s replacement, Lexi Demott, became only the fourth person to win regional titles at Galesburg as a player and head coach. The first to do it was Mike Owens as a player in 1955 and 1956 and as head coach in 1976 and 1977.
In between Owens was head coach in Wheeling’s first five seasons from 1964-69 and led the program to some of its greatest success, including its first regional title in his final season. The Wildcats’ 19-6 finish in 1968-69 still is the single-season school record for victories (matched five times) and they won their only outright MSL title by going 13-1 in the pre-division era.
Owens’ 1967-68 team also went 13-1 in the MSL to share the title with Arlington and finished 17-5 overall.
Owens returned to Galesburg after a stint as an assistant at Northwestern. For those of us who gripe about the state tourney setups, the old true regional format in 1976 saw Owens’ Class AA ninth-ranked Galesburg team at 23-3 pull an 85-79 overtime stunner in the title game of top-ranked and 26-0 Peoria Richwoods with future Illinois standouts Mark Smith and Derek Holcomb.
Owens did have a pair of Division I big men in Scott Kelley (Iowa and Evansville) and Mike Campbell (Northwestern) and they lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Morgan Park. Owens also started on the 1955 team that lost in overtime to Elgin in the quarterfinals and the next year he had a game-high 29 points in a double-overtime supersectional loss to eventual champion Rockford West.
Barry Swanson and Dave Peck were the other two from Galesburg to win regionals as a player and head coach. Massey finished behind Marshall’s Dorothy Gaters (1,153) and Fenwick’s Dave Power (1,120) on the IHSA girls career victory list.