Friday, Nov. 13, 2009

None flew higher: 20 years later, Flyers remember a special state championship

Two plays into the 1989 prep football season, former East St. Louis High coach Bob Shannon started getting really excited.

It was the season opener against Sumner and a Bulldogs running back made the mistake of putting himself directly into the path of oncoming senior All-American linebacker Dana Howard.

Bad mistake.

"Dana hit the guy so hard that you could hear it everywhere, and that game was over right there," Shannon said of a game East Side won 39-0. "Those backs wouldn't run any more. They were done."

Twenty years ago this month, the Flyers defeated (Harvey) Thornton 55-8 in the Class 6A state championship game to win the fifth of their seven state titles and also laid claim to their second USA Today national championship in four years.

Even among hard-core Flyers fans who have seen their share of wins over the year, the debate remains: Which team was better, the '85 champions led by Bryan Cox and Julyon Brown, or the '89 squad?

"Back then, just to be a Flyer was a great thing," said Homer Bush, a junior receiver on that team, who went on to win the 1998 World Series championship with the New York Yankees.

The 1989 squad racked up 90 touchdowns, scored 615 points while allowing 139. East Side ran for 3,558 yards and threw for 2,190, with kicker DeCarlos Nicholson booting 55 extra points.

The Flyers had a prolific offense led by senior All-American receiver Kenneth Dunn, quarterback Rollie Nevilles, running backs Chris Moore and LaGrant Suggs and receivers Jerry Creer, Bush and Demario Kennedy.

This wasn't just a bunch of tremendous athletes. They were smart football players with amazing instincts. Howard said Shannon trusted them enough to let the defense call certain plays and the offense had audibles that could be changed at the line of scrimmage.

The team produced two future NFL players in Howard and linebacker Dennis Stallings, close to a dozen college players and two future pro baseball players in Bush and Creer.

"We'd lost the state title the prior two years, so it was something we felt like it was a must for us -- to go to state and be victorious," said Howard, who went on to become an All-American and Butkus Award winner at Illinois before playing two seasons in the NFL with the Rams, Cowboys and Bears. "In the previous two years, I guess we assumed that it was going to be handed to us because we were East St. Louis and our teams in the past had won it."

Survive and thrive

The Flyers survived a 14-13 nailbiter in the quarterfinals against (Orland Park) Sandburg, then blitzed (Hoffman Estates) Conant 36-2 in the semifinals.

Against Sandburg, the Flyers faced a third-and-20 deep in their own end when senior Jay Ashford found himself in the right place at the right time.

"He went face-down into the ground and trapped the ball on his shoulder pads," Shannon said. "He never did pull it in, but he caught it."

Dunn wound up catching a touchdown pass and Moore picked off a pass with less than minute to go to clinch the win.

Wanting to make amends for two straight runner-up finishes, the Flyers left nothing to chance in the Class 6A state title game. They hammered Thornton, running and throwing the ball at will.

Shannon placed Howard at tight end next to massive right tackle Cedric Howard, then inserted the aggressive Stallings at wingback.

That side of the line didn't just open holes, it created superhighways to the end zone on the artificial turf at Illinois State University in Normal.

"They couldn't stop the sweep, they couldn't stop the pitch and they couldn't stop the off-tackle because those three guys just did an excellent job of blocking and dominating," Shannon said.

Howard said the coaching staff had the team so well prepared that during the pregame walkthrough at the hotel, he told Shannon "Coach, if we don't know it by now, we never will."

"It was one of those days where everything went right," Howard said. "When you have no fear, you can accomplish anything."

Twenty years later, Bush still hears the high-pitched voice of Shannon asking his team for more and more.

"Every game it would be 'You guys got to turn it up a notch, this is playoff football," said Bush, who has retired from baseball and lives with his wife and two children in Southlake, Texas. "I can pull a lot of my experiences from football -- the feeling I had, the dedication, all that hard work -- and say 'Man, I learned this from Coach Shannon.'

"It made me so prepared for anything that I do in life."

Life lessons through football

Bush would be a prep All-American the next year, turning down a football scholarship from Missouri to sign with the San Diego Padres.

But the best receiver on the '89 squad was Dunn -- a player Shannon had his doubts about heading into that season.

"We kicked him off the year before and he came back and was a good player for us," said Shannon, who had no trouble taking tough disciplinary stands against even his top players. "He had a little trouble doing some things around the (school) building that we didn't feel was representing our team and school the way we wanted him to do."

Dunn made good on his second chance, hauling in 58 catches for 1,180 yards and 15 touchdowns.

"Even though I broke the (receiving) record, he was by far a better receiver than I was,' Bush said of Dunn. "He was more physical than I was, he was better catching the ball in traffic.

"My big deal was give it to me on the outside and let me run."

Creer, also drafted by the Padres following his senior year at East St. Louis, was an effective receiver and runner that year. He was third on the team with 606 yards rushing and also caught 13 passes for 280 yards, scoring 14 TDs.

But when the Flyers needed something on the ground, the first option was Moore, then a 5-foot-8, 160-pound sophomore.

Moore finished the year with 1,356 yards and team-leading 20 touchdowns. Moore loved to have fun and later in his career would brag about his accomplishments just so he could back them up on the field.

Coming into the 2009 season, Moore was 10th all-time on the Illinois rushing list with 5,174 career yards and eighth all-time with 86 touchdowns. That's the highest total in metro-east football history.

Bush still believes Moore learned his elusive but bruising style from his days on the playground in grade school.

"He just had that gift," Bush said. "When he ran the ball he wasn't really worried about the first guy, he was worried about making the second guy miss.

"He had that ability to think ahead and a lot of times, a lot of running backs can't do that."

Moore signed with Illinois, but academic problems led him to attend NAIA school Culver-Stockton instead.

Moore followed in the footsteps of his father and brother and is an over-the-road truck driver, his former teammates said.

Nevilles wasn't a spectacular quarterback, but his leadership skills made him a favorite of Shannon. Nevilles threw for 1,875 yards and 20 TDs that season, but the Flyers' coach said what the signal-caller did off the field was just as important.

"I wanted to know who was the first guy out of that locker room door every day," Shannon said. "With me it was always the quarterbacks, because that's the way we were. We sold them on the importance of getting the work done."

Big hitters on defense

There wasn't much selling done on the defensive side of the ball when it came to hitting. Players like Dion Dean, DeCarlo Buckner, Demond Hunt and Larry Hampton were eager to let opposing teams know the Flyers' defense wasn't just the Dana Howard Show.

Sometimes the Flyers' practices were tougher than anything they'd see in a game.

One day, Shannon was closely watching Cedric Howard (6-0, 240) blocking against Dana Howard (6-3, 230) to see who was winning the battles.

"Cedric was a grown man back then and Coach Shannon really got those guys going," Bush said. "Dana got all fired up and it was like two bulls ramming against each other. Coach Shannon was like 'Yeah guys, yeah guys, I love it!' I was like, 'please, I want no part of that.'

"I didn't want that to become a team drill or anything."

Howard recalled the day like it just happened

"Ced never wanted to back down and I wasn't going to back down, so it was do what you have to do," said Howard, who cherishes his Flyers days and still gets to as many games as possible. "I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. The experience that I got from East St. Louis Senior was greater than I'm sure any other school in the state would ever give you."