Oct. 23--For as long as they can remember, Ryan Howson and the rest of the Hoffman Estates seniors were told their school couldn't win.
They would hear about the inherent disadvantages that contributed heavily to Hoffman Estates' long stay in the Mid-Suburban West basement, but youth football players don't tend to concern themselves with demographics and socioeconomics.
All that losing the older kids did, though, that didn't escape them.
"My brother was in the program," Howson, a two-way starter who has not missed a snap for Hoffman Estates this season, said. "He is 24. Five years before him and five years after him, they were God-awful."
As for Howson and fellow seniors Dante Cleveland, Chady Bitre, Nathan Edwards and Zack Clark, the losing did not start young.
But there was a catch. Their youth team, the Hoffman Estates Redhawks, includes kids from several neighboring towns in the sprawling Northwest Suburbs.
"Kids went to Fremd, Schaumburg, Conant," Howson said. "We were pretty much looked down upon for going to Hoffman Estates."
"It is something we're still reminded of every game," Edwards said.
The Hawks took care of Schaumburg last year, beating the Saxons on the way to a 4-5 record that was Hoffman Estates' best since going 5-4 in 2000.
Easily the smallest and most diverse school in the MSL West, Hoffman Estates was determined to build off last year's promise and finally end the team's playoff drought at 21 years.
A 2-4 start marred by three down-to-the-wire losses all but assured that wouldn't happen, what with MSL West powers Fremd, Conant and Barrington remaining on the schedule, a margin of error of zero and this relevant piece of information:
"Nobody on this varsity team," Bitre said, "had ever beaten any of those three teams on any level."
The 5-foot-6, 150-pound Bitre played hero the first time, catching an overtime touchdown pass from Keegan Pierce and scoring the winning points on a two-point conversion run that gave Hoffman Estates a 25-24 victory over Fremd.
The return from injury of Cleveland, a 6-3, 255-pound two-way standout, and Bitre's 20-yard touchdown run with 40 seconds remaining highlighted the second leg, a 30-29 stunner of crosstown rival Conant.
Fittingly, the final challenge is the most daunting -- at No. 18 Barrington on Friday.
"I think we all knew it from the beginning of the season, but we didn't believe it as much we do now," Bitre said. "Actually doing it makes it much easier to believe."
It was evident this class was different immediately, at least to the trained eye. Fortunately, two of them, belonging to former Fremd coach Mike Donatucci, happened to catch a Hoffman Estates freshman game in 2012.
Donatucci had stepped down following a highly successful 19-year run at Fremd the previous year because he retired from teaching, but he wanted to continue coaching so he joined Mark Stilling's Schaumburg staff.
"It was a Thursday night and I was sitting in the stands with Mark," Donatucci said. "I told him, 'If this job opens up, I'm going for it. These kids can win.' "
Donatucci knew how much that would mean to the kids in the program -- and was eminently aware of the odds against it.
An assistant at Hoffman Estates from 1979-92 before landing the Fremd job, Donatucci was sensitive to the issues that had changed the program "night and day" since he was there.
"Fifty percent of the population of the school comes from populations that do not traditionally play football," Donatucci said. "Football is a numbers game. Practice, depth, discipline, everything slides backward when you don't have the numbers.
"As it is we are the smallest school in the conference going up against the big dogs, and the other issue people forget is we have more kids at our school below the poverty level. That is another hurdle for kids to overcome on a daily basis. Getting kids to practice over the summer, how they're eating, those are things we had to focus on."
Donatucci's sensitivity was not present on the practice field.
The football part, he had covered, and at 60, he hasn't lost any of his touch with kids.
"I was a sophomore on the varsity team," Edwards said. "That first day, you were surprised a gentle old man would start screaming at you like that. At first it was a little crazy, but then you start hearing it enough times and you start to believe it. You start buying in."
Their belief was put to the test in losses to Prospect and Rolling Meadows -- the only victories by MSL East teams over the MSL West this season -- and on life support after getting blown out by Palatine and losing a heartbreaker to Schaumburg.
The program's two biggest wins in years followed, and the Hawks remain energized by their playoff dreams. Dreaming, though, carries inherent risk.
For everything they've overcome to get to where they are, it's going to be hard to consider anything short of a trip to the playoffs a success.
"When you sit back and look at that from an adult perspective, you can appreciate it," Donatucci said. "But from a kid's perspective, this is a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Our goal from day one was to make the playoffs. I don't think they're going to be satisfied if they don't accomplish it."
Mike Helfgot is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
