THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
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DANVILLE — The approximately 80 girls who’ve expressed interest in playing on Danville High School’s new girls’ flag-football team will be taking to the Wayland-Young Practice Field starting Friday.
The team also will be the lucky one to christen the new turf and renovated Ned Whitesell Field on Aug. 29.
Co-coaches Bryan Simmons and Taylor Vollmer will be welcoming the girls to the first summer training session starting at noon Friday.
Simmons is a home interventionist and Vollmer is a behavior interventionist at Danville High.
According to athletic director Gary Gritton, Vollmer has coached girls’ basketball for the last four to five years, serving as junior-varsity coach.
Simmons hasn’t coached before but played flag football in college intramurals, Gritton said.
“He does have a little bit of background. They are both very popular with the students,” Gritton said of the new coaches.
Gritton said the girls’ flag-football program has big numbers in initial student interest in the first year for the sport at Danville. Seventy-nine girls signed up to receive information.
“Those are just phenomenal numbers,” Gritton said. “We don’t have any sport close to that.”
He’s sure not all of them will show up for the first workout this week.
The summer workouts a few days a week will consist of conditioning, basic drills, getting the girls used to pulling on flags and handing the smaller, youth-sized football, and introducing them to the game, Gritton said.
He said it will be a little adjustment for the girls used to throwing a regular football in the backyard.
Gritton said for the state series, regionals and sectionals, the roster is limited to 25 players.
“Our promise is to not cut anybody in the first year,” Gritton said. “We’re just excited they’re interested in the sport.”
There will be varsity and junior varsity teams.
Gritton said they will accommodate as many as are interested.
There will be 10 varsity games, with the first scheduled at home at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 29 against Peoria Richwoods. The varsity girls’ team will play first, followed by the junior varsity and underclass contests.
The games will take place the day before the boys’ home football opener against Bloomington on Aug. 30.
Gritton said they purposely scheduled the girls’ team to use the new turf field for the first time, as it’s ushering in a new — the new 100 years of athletics at Danville — and the renovated Ned Whitesell Field, he said.
“It’s to promote inclusion. That’s kind of why we wanted the girls to be on the field first, as a way of promoting girls participating in athletics,” Gritton said.
While they’ll use the full length of the field, the girls’ games won’t be as long, with two 20-minute running clock halves and a 3-minute halftime.
Danville has been fortunate to have help from the Chicago Bears to provide uniforms, flags, footballs and other needed equipment.
Gritton said when he attended the Illinois High School Association training for new athletic directors last fall in Bloomington, Executive Director Craig Anderson mentioned that flag football was coming as a sanctioned sport and they were looking for schools that could support it. Many teams throughout the Chicago area were starting up and received assistance with uniform and equipment funding.
Gritton said the Bears, including Gustavo Silva and head coach Matt Eberflus, have been supportive and wonderful to work with. The Danville team is receiving various training equipment and 25 uniforms with the Vikings logo on them, including home and away jerseys, as part of Eberflus’ Nike contract.
On July 23, the team is set to attend Bears training camp at Lake Forest to watch practice and meet Eberflus to thank him for helping the team. The players also will get to take pictures and the Bears are hosing a clinic for girls’ flag football.
Once construction on Danville’s new football field is completed and school begins in mid-August, girls’ flag-football team practices will move to the new turf field in the evenings.
The number of competitors also will be growing.
“There are few teams in our geographical area,” Gritton said about this first year. “Next year, a lot more are coming on.”
The closest team to Danville is Bradley-Bourbonnais near Kankakee. The three Peoria schools also all have teams, he said.
Seasons can have a total of 25 games. Danville’s 10 games this year could increase to more next year as more teams in the area come aboard.
“It’s been a really cool venture for this,” Gritton said.
Gritton said the field construction is also moving along great.
Construction started on the estimated $5.4 million upgrade earlier this year. The concrete work that’s been going on for the last couple months on the bleachers and other areas should be completed by July 1, according to construction crews.
The project will then be turned over to the field-turf crew, Gritton said. Installation of the artificial tuf is expected to take about a week.
The new video scoreboard, built nearby at Watchfire Signs, is scheduled to be installed on June 17.
“That will be an exciting day when we feel things are progressing along,” Gritton said.
“Construction crews feel they are still on schedule,” he said about completing the project by the end of August. The crews will be working some Saturdays, as they recently did this past Saturday, to move some forms for the next row of bleachers.
Gritton said drainage, ground work and rock are ready from midfield to the east side. Crews are currently finishing the concrete and west side for the installation of the turf itself.
There will be training involved for the turf-grooming machine, Gritton said.
The company “will teach us the proper way to groom the field and timing and how often,” he said.
In addition, Watchfire Signs representatives will conduct training on the new videoboard. The scoreboard is bigger than any others at the high school and has the latest software, and staff will be able to create multi-sport and other content for it.
Gritton said he’s fine with some of his summer vacation days being taken up with training and other school-related items.
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