WWS vs. Glenbard West: Not Just a Made-for-TV Matchup

Like many in the communities of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn, Wheaton Warrenville South head coach Ron Muhitch is looking forward to Sunday morning when his two-time defending Class 7A champion Tigers clash with Glenbard West in a game at Red Grange Field that’s part of this weekend’s ESPN High School Football Kickoff.

“I think everybody likes going to a big event,” he said. “You get an opportunity like this maybe once or twice in the career of a high school.”

Yet while sitting at his office desk one recent afternoon, Muhitch clearly was enjoying talking about a storied past that Wheaton Warrenville South and Glenbard West share on the gridiron as much as discussing what’s in store Sunday. 

Although ESPN2 is televising the game, this isn’t just a made-for-TV matchup. The two schools, he points out, have a long-standing rivalry which precedes their two most recent playoff matchups last year (a 40-20 WWS triumph in the Class 7A quarterfinals) and in 2009 (the Tigers’ 31-24 double-overtime victory over the Hilltoppers for the 7A championship).

Historic rivalry  

It’s a rivalry that dates back to 1916 when present-day Wheaton Warrenville South and Glenbard West were the only high schools in each town—Wheaton High School and Glenbard High School.

Grange, the famed “Galloping Ghost,” graduated from Wheaton High School in 1922 and later reached his legendary status at the University of Illinois and with the Chicago Bears. Grange, who played four years of prep football, scored 75 career touchdowns. He was the team’s left halfback his sophomore, junior and senior years, and likely competed in the 1920 Wheaton vs. Glenbard game (the two schools didn’t face each other during Grange’s junior and senior years). Wheaton throttled Glenbard that year, 72-0.

“This was one of the longest standing historical games in the state of Illinois,” Muhitch said. “Glenbard versus Wheaton; that’s how far back it goes. So you have historically a great, great rivalry across Lambert Road that made its way all the way to a state championship game (in 2009). No one in the world could have predicted that.”

The Tigers and Hilltoppers opened their seasons against each other for 46 consecutive years between 1925 and 1974—a span that included each school changing its name (Wheaton became Wheaton Central in 1964, and Glenbard became Glenbard West 10 years later).

Wheaton Central and Glenbard West didn’t have a game for 14 years between 1975 and 1988, but resumed their tradition of playing each other in the season-opener in 1989 and continued their series into 2006. Aside from their postseason meetings in 2009 and 2010, Sunday marks the first time since ’06 that the Tigers and Hilltoppers have squared off in a regular season game.

Muhitch credits Glenbard West head coach Chat Hetlet, who took over in 2007, for putting the wheels in motion to get the game back on their schedules.

“As soon as Chad got there, he wanted the game back,” Muhitch said. “He’s taken their program to new heights. Glenbard West represents an outstanding football program. Where they’re at right now to where they were three years ago is night and day.

“You have two pretty good programs (WWS and Glenbard West) over the history of football in Illinois that have gone toe-to-toe and really represented their communities extremely well.”

Talk of the town(s)

This 90-plus-year-old rivalry—WWS leads the series 32-27 with 11 ties—will play out on a national stage, starting at 11 a.m. Sunday on ESPN2. The Tigers-Hilltoppers contest is one of several games ESPN2 is airing this weekend that involves many of the country’s top-ranked prep teams.

Locally, the game has been the talk of the town—make that both towns—for weeks. In fact, Wheaton Mayor Mike Gresk and Glen Ellyn Village President Mark Pfefferman have a stake in the outcome. They have agreed that the winning team gets to fly their town’s civic flag, as well as the school flag, on the flagpole of the losing team’s municipal center for a week.

Fans who packed into Red Grange Field last September for the nationally televised Week 2 showdown between the Tigers and Maine South should prepare themselves for more than a tight squeeze this time around.   

“Can you imagine how big that crowd could be on a Sunday morning?” Muhitch said. “It was on a Friday night last year. Other people wanted to come, but they had games to play themselves. So now nobody has a game to play.

“You have a game Friday night and you go and watch Wheaton Warrenville South and Glenbard West play Sunday morning. That’s a pretty good scouting report for every suburban school in DuPage County.”

Speaking from experience, senior running back Dan Vitale, who saw action in the Maine South game last season—the Tigers whipped the eventual Class 8A champion Hawks, 44-7—says everything will be magnified on Sunday.

“It’s huge excitement and I can’t wait,” said Vitale, a Northwestern recruit. “It doesn’t get any better than that, especially for a first game, a season opener.

“All eyes are on you. Everyone sees every step, every move you make. But you’ve got to thrive off that and do your best every play. That’s what I try to do, and it turned out to be a good game for us.”

Great exposure for Illinois prep football

Muhitch, of course, wants the Tigers to prevail on ESPN for the second consecutive year. But regardless of the outcome, he is grateful to see high school football in Illinois gain national recognition.

“I will say this,” he said. “I don’t know if (national) exposure is really what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for a national ranking; we’re just looking to be thought of as a pretty good brand of high school football.

“I think the beauty of this whole thing is we’re being talked about as a program, and as a state in the same mindset as some of these other (national) programs have been notarized.”

An additional benefit of being on national television, Muhitch notes, is that players’ relatives, such as grandparents, and WWS alumni who live in other states can take part in a homecoming, of sorts, in their living rooms.

“Does it help when Wheaton’s audience from across the country can watch their (grand)kids, their alma mater play on national TV? You betcha,” he said. “We had more alumni response than I knew was out there watching us play (last year).

“If some kid’s grandfather in Oregon can watch his (grand)kid play on national TV on ESPN, I don’t think there’s anything too wrong with that.”