Todd Stevens wants to create lasting memories, experiences for players at Washington

Todd Stevens knows all about making memories playing high school football.

He was a member of the 1989 state runner-up football team at Princeton High School.

He wants to create the same kind of life-lasting experiences for his players as the new head coach at Washington High School. Stevens, who has been with the Panthers program for 29 years, 23 years as defensive coordinator, succeeds Darrell Crouch, who retired after 19 seasons.

“I want these kids to have the same experience I had in high school. When they leave in four years, they’re still talking about it years down the road,” he said.

The 1989 season at Princeton was unlike any other, with the Tigers making their way to the state championship game backed by a community-wide spirit and their own version of the Bears’ “Super Bowl Shuffle” called “Tiger Style Runnin’ Wild” written by assistant coach Steve Kiser.

“The community support was unreal,” Stevens said after the July 18 scrimmage he brought his Panthers to play against his hometown Tigers. “I remember the Alleman [playoff] game, looking around seeing people in the end zone. There were 4,000 strong, standing room only. It was really kind of special. We got to play that game at home and avenge a loss from the last year. The caravan back into town when we played at Marmion, seeing all the cars lined up past the PI when we came into town. The community support was awesome. And we were really treated well as players. The coaches were treated well.

“The town [of Princeton] supports its community, and that’s kind of what we’ve found in Washington, as well. I can see a lot of parallels between the two with a little bit bigger population [at Washington]. The cool thing on Friday nights, everybody shows up to support the team. And I think that’s one of the most special memories how the community supports the team.

“I tell my guys, I was an average athlete on an above-average team. I just enjoyed the camaraderie. We had a lot of good football players. A lot of hard-nosed football players. The group as a whole was just like family, and that’s what we preach to our guys, too. We went out to lunch together. We still maintain contact with each other and make sure everybody’s doing well. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a couple guys on that team. Gone way, way too early. We seem to kind of still be there when somebody needs a pick-up all these many years later.”

Stevens was highly influenced by late Tigers head coach Randy Swinford, who had a special ability to handle teenage boys, especially when it came to discipline.

“He’d put his arm around you and console if you needed it. But if you weren’t doing your job, he’d let you know that, too,” Stevens said. “He also kept contact with his players after it’s over. I think that is a true sign of a coach. Once you’re done, you’re not done. ‘Once a Tiger, always a Tiger.’ ‘Once a Panther, always a Panther.’

“It was very special for him to keep in touch with me years down the road. I ran into him multiple times. And he got back into coaching a few years after he was out, and I got to hang out with him at the clinics in Champaign. And it was really neat to hear his input on our group as a nonplayer. Obviously, he couldn’t tell us exactly what he thought of us when he was coaching us. We got the full scoop then in the end.”

While admittedly having big shoes to fill after Crouch’s tenure and last year’s Class 6A semifinal appearance, Stevens said it has been a smooth transition.

“Darrell and I are really good friends [coached] together 19 years. He’s really given me the opportunity to do some things within the program I can continue to maintain and continue to evolve as a head coach,” Stevens said. “So the transition with being with the kids and community, that part was easy. Some people may go and travel a couple hundreds of miles and they’re coaching in an unfamiliar territory. It really helped I was able to step in and have most of the same staff that we had before. I knew the kids, knew the community, working well with our 12-man booster club.

“The coaching out here with the kids, that’s kind of the easy part. It’s all the behind-the-scenes stuff. The stuff you don’t see on a regular basis, the emails, the phone calls, the recruiting process. Those are the type of things that rack up the hours, especially over the course of the summer. I’m almost ready to go back to school and sleep in a little bit. Our workouts are 6:15 in the morning. We get after it pretty early.”

There’s some high expectations that come with the job in a community that lives and dies with its football team, dating to John Venturi’s 1983 state runner-up and 1985 state championship teams and a string of 16 successive playoff appearances under Crouch.

“We’re expected to be in the playoffs. We’re expected to compete for a conference title every single year. Obviously, there’s some pressure that goes along with that,” Stevens said. “I think if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll be fine. But definitely, the tradition is super deep. We’ve got a deep alumni base, and it’s neat to see those guys still involved.

“We’ve got a 12th-man president here [for the scrimmage at Princeton] that doesn’t have a kid in the program. Played football here. His boys played here. We’ve got guys who are active continuing to support the program. We’re talking active boots on the ground, guys helping fundraising, organizing golf outings. They don’t have a skin in the game. That tradition is spread community-wide, even if some of the guys who move away, they still have some pretty close ties to the program and that is really, really special.”

Stevens will continue a Panthers tradition that made national news last year when they invite the moms to come show their sons how it’s done. The moms were invited to square up against their sons and tackle them. Highlights of the mom’s tackles and hard hits made ESPN.

“When I first started with John Venturi, we had a mom’s night and had officials come in and teach them the signals,” Stevens said. “I told Darrell I wanted to bring that part back, but wanted to spice it up a little but. I saw on YouTube one time a JFL kid came home and his mom tackled him. I was, ‘Alright, now we’re going somewhere.’ So we added that element, and it just kind of blew up from there. I think the right people saw it.”

The moms really get into it, Stevens said.

“I think every year, somebody tries to outdo the moms before,” he said. “The moms line up and take care of business. There’s some causalities, but the moms seem to love it. They’d definitely be disappointed if we got rid of it, so that’s something’s that’s going to continue to progress over the years.”

Stevens started up another new tradition, having the moms write their sons a letter they opened about an hour and a half before last year’s season opener with Kaneland.

“Everybody started kneeling down and crying, and I said, ‘What am I doing here. It’s an hour and a half before game time and these guys are balling their eyes out.’ But it was pretty special,” he said.

Kevin Hieronymus has been the BCR Sports Editor since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@shawmedia.com