Styf: Best of luck to Crystal Lake South's Trevor Keegan at Michigan

McHenry County is a football area, and Community High School District 155 is a football district.

For three years in a row, the district has had a state championship football team.

On Friday night, the biggest recruit in the state from that same district committed to the University of Michigan.

It all makes sense.

College coaches might head elsewhere for skill position players, but as former Crystal Lake South football coach Chuck Ahsmann once told me, recruiters always say they come here to get their linemen.

From Bryan Bulaga, who grew up near South but attended Marian Central, to Trevor Keegan, the senior who soon will sign with Michigan after his Friday night commitment, they're huge.

Bulaga looks like he won't be in the lineup for his Green Bay Packers during Sunday's game against the Bears, but another huge guy in McHenry grad Robert Tonyan will be. And you'll be able to check out reporter Sean Hammond's coverage of Tonyan in Monday's edition.

Just remember that the road from where Keegan's at to where Bulaga has made it is a long one, and there is no guarantee of reaching near the success the Packers' lineman has had.

There are similarities, for sure, from starting with the Crystal Lake Raiders to being a pretty good baseball player to working with Crystal Lake Central offensive line coach Steve Spoden, whose name gets mentioned along with a lot of the area's top football linemen through the years.

But it likely will be a waiting game – something Cary-Grove grad Trevor Ruhland found at Notre Dame, Richmond-Burton grad Dalton Wagner endured at Arkansas and Prairie Ridge grad Shane Evans experienced at Northern Illinois and then Purdue.

Being big and athletic and having huge potential is one thing. You've got to work for years at college to fight for a chance at the big time, too.

But this is the exciting part. So Friday was a great time to celebrate what Keegan has done and what he could do in the future. Just don't expect it all to come together immediately at the next level.

Injuries can create opportunities, but getting a shot at playing right away at a huge Division I football school, especially on the offensive line, is almost unheard of – just as starting all year as a freshman at Crystal Lake South was before Keegan became the first.

He didn't sit on that list alone for long, however, as Dominic Collado followed him down the same path a year later.

So congratulations to Keegan. Enjoy the rest of your time in high school, and get ready – when you head to Michigan next summer – to work hard. Because your football journey is only just beginning.

And there are a ton of ways to define success going forward.

One is getting a degree from a pretty good school, which is hard for me to admit as a Michigan State grad. Another is working your way onto the field for an elite team in one of the largest stadiums in the country, which seats almost 110,000 people for home games.

And beyond that is being good enough to make it to the level beyond that.

Not everyone can make it, and being a top recruit out of high school isn't a prerequisite. Just ask Crystal Lake South grad Dennis Gardeck or Woodstock grad Mike Liedtke.

What's more important is taking that potential and working hard, doing everything you can to get better and seeing where that takes you. The possibilities are endless.

• Northwest Herald Editor Jon Styf can be reached at jstyf@shawmedia.com or 815-526-4630.