This year, RMHS Varsity Football is ready to start their football season with a bang-for real this time. With last year’s season starting in the winter without proper training, the season was cut short of quality time. This year however, with a full summer of training under their belt, the team started their season against Glenbrook South on Friday, August 27th, and are set for another game against Hoffman Estates on Friday, September 3rd. Head Coach Samuel Baker is excited to start his second season under the lights and is ready to bring the fire to the field.

“I’m really excited about our offensive/defensive linemen,” Baker said. “Not often do we have that group as a strength, and so I’m really happy with them.”

This year, the football team has a lot of strong returning players that show leadership on and off the field, especially the senior team captains Mike Brigham, Frank Eleftheriou, Ethan Groark and Pj Ford. Apart from those students, most of the returning players who received lots of playing time in previous years are ready to bring their A-game in both leadership and athletics.

“We’re going to consider that a strength,” said Scott Otahal, varsity defensive coordinator/linebackers coach. “We have to build off of those strengths… build off of those kids, and those kids have to be good leaders for us.”

The RMHS football program hopes to build up from what was lost last year and create a team with more comradery and social time. With the Covid-19 Pandemic, players lost a lot of team building opportunities. Now that things are returning to a relatively more normal schedule for football, coach Baker likes to touch on the new aspect of closeness. The players sport the words ‘brotherhood’ on the back of their helmets this year to remind each other of the way the program was built around trust and communication.

Along with the relationships built amongst the team, players and coaches are especially excited to see fans again. After all, the best time spent on the field is made by the people who watch it, and of course, just getting to be around each other.

“That’s the biggest thing,” said Otahal. “Just having the full group together and being able to do normal things, that’s the best [we] have going for us.”