The Program: Unity football in 2023

Aug. 24—TOLONO — Sitting in a first-floor classroom on the back side of Unity High School, Scott Hamilton gazes out one of the multiple windows and can see Hicks Field on this overcast Friday morning.

The sun had just risen within the past hour, with clouds peeking through every now and then. Hamilton, veteran Unity football coach, occasionally grabs a white, Styrofoam Casey's cup and takes a sip in a break from conversing with a visitor to the school.

He's decked out in khaki shorts, a maroon Unity short-sleeve pullover and is about to step out into the warm mid-August air.

And make his way to Hicks Field. A venue he is so intimately familiar with. The turf is relatively new, having been installed in 2019. But the history of success? Oh, boy. That dates back even longer.

"The pressure of having high expectations, it comes from me," Hamilton said, "and I guess it's better than everybody thinking you're going to be bad."

Which has hardly happened in the last 30 years. Hamilton carries a 273-67 record that includes 27 playoff appearances, six state runner-up finishes and a 2017 Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame induction into this fall.

Another fall, with another set of lofty expectations placed upon the Rockets. Finishing with an 11-2 record last season and reaching the Class 3A state semifinals only adds to it. Even if a sophomore quarterback in Dane Eisenmenger has yet to throw a varsity pass, a junior running back in Garrett Richardson will have to replace a standout in Matt Brown and only two starters return from an elite defense a year ago.

"I tell people all the time, I think it's a little unfair to our kids," Hamilton said. "The pressure on those guys to do things is extremely high. I don't necessarily feel the pressure all that much because I've done it long enough, but last year, when we lost to Prairie Central in Week 1, you'd hear people say, 'We're never going to win a game,' and 'We're going to be terrible.' I think that weighs on the kids a little bit, probably more than it does us as coaches"

The Rockets enter this season ranked No. 1 in The News-Gazette's preseason Top 10 poll. A ranking they'll try to justify all season long in navigating the challenging Illini Prairie Conference and getting a home game with reigning 2A state champion St. Teresa.

The players Unity will rely on this season, though, understand the weight of expectation placed upon the Rockets every fall. And realize what it's like to put on the Unity jersey.

"You never second-guess Coach Hamilton because he's been doing this for a long time," senior wide receiver Aiden Porter said. "He's obviously made a resume for himself. You go along, follow him, and he'll lead you to success."

And Hamilton has done it, mainly without Division I talent filtering into the southern Champaign County high school. The five towns that make up the Unity school district — Tolono, Philo, Sidney, Sadorus and Pesotum — are best described as rural, farming communities. The fans who come out to Hicks Field for home games see acres upon acres of farmland on either side of the field.

"It's pretty boring growing up in Sidney," Suding said with a laugh about his hometown. "Not very many people live there. The Dairy Barn is about the only hot spot in town."

The success of Suding and the rest of his teammates, though, stems in part from a combination of factors. The longevity Hamilton has with his staff — defensive coordinator Dave Fink and offensive coordinator Tony Reetz have both worked with Hamilton for two decades, with Fink in his 27th season and Reetz entering his 20th season — is just one example.

So is the principle of having Unity players only starting on one side of the ball. Unity has an enrollment of 516 students and plays in the 3A playoffs. Most programs of similar size use their best players on both offense and defense. Not the Rockets.

"We started going one way-starters sometimes in the late 2000s," Hamilton said, with the idea to give Unity's offensive line more time to recover in between offensive series. "We tried to really start doing it with our linemen. As we go up through, we kept adding to it and being more committed to it. Right now, we're at 96 kids in our program, which is a huge number. A lot of that is the kids know they'll have a chance to play here because we do spread it out, and it keeps our kids a lot fresher."

Suding agrees with that last point.

"It helps with conserving our energy," he said. "We're going to get exhausted pretty quick if we have to play both ways, so it's good to feel refreshed throughout the game."

Hamilton isn't opposed to using players on both sides of the ball if needed. But it's rare that he deviates from that script.

"Sometimes, it's tough in Week 1 or Week 2 to play a kid that maybe isn't quite ready versus you've got another kid who could be ready," Hamilton said. "But in the long haul, I think that makes our special teams stronger. We really don't hold kids back from special teams because they have a break already from offense or defense. Our coaches have bought in. We don't ever really get into debates about, 'This kid needs to be a two-way guy.'"

It also allows for the Unity assistant coaches to huddle with the players, whether it's on offense or defense, and talk directly to them on the sidelines.

"The biggest thing it does is we can make so many adjustments in a game," Hamilton said. "We don't have to wait until halftime to make an adjustment."

Adjustments will happen during the next nine weeks for the Rockets. They'll learn more about new players, rely on proven talent even more and adapt to the pressure and privilege of playing underneath the Friday night lights for Unity.

All with a desired goal in mind once the calendar hits late October and flips into November. To give the Rockets a chance at an elusive state title.

"You always expect to win," Unity senior wide receiver Jay Saunders said. "Every Saturday in the playoffs, you're waking up excited and ready to go."

The journey for this year's Unity team starts Friday night when the Rockets host Prairie Central at 8 p.m. at Hicks Field. It's a rematch of a 3A state quarterfinal game the Rockets won 14-0 against the Hawks last November in Fairbury.

But this upcoming game, these upcoming moments the entire Unity football program will experience this fall, was years and decades in the making.

Hamilton leans back in the classroom desk he's sitting in and offers this final thought before he's about to go watch the Unity freshman football team go through the paces of an early-morning workout.

"The one thing that I have come to know about this place is, that it doesn't matter what it is, if you work hard and you're successful and you have pride in what you're doing," he said, "this community is going to support it."