By Gene Chamberlain
Hersey’s loss proved to be Larkin’s gain.
Hersey football coach Dragan Teonic lost his teaching spot because of staff reductions in March, but he has been hired as Larkin’s new football coach from among 40 candidates, Royals athletic director Mark Ribbens announced Monday. Teonic also will serve as a physical education teacher at the school.
“Dragan has done it before, proven himself as a successful head coach and overhauled a program to turn it around,” Ribbens said. “Our numbers have to go up, and I feel like he can be a pied piper of sorts that kids will flock to.
“At Hersey, the participation in all sports went up after he came there because he steers kids into sports in addition to football.”
The hiring ends a search for the school’s seventh head coach that started at the end of last season, when Mike Scianna announced his resignation before Larkin’s season had ended with a 3-6 record.
“I love the challenge of building and flipping the culture,” Teonic said. “Obviously they have an amazing basketball program there (at Larkin) and I feel we can be successful in that way.”
Teonic achieved great offensive success as the coach at Harper College, but called his approach more balanced.
“Statistics get skewed one way or another,” he said. “You still win in football by playing good defense, special teams and protecting the ball on offense. I’m not interested in crazy numbers as much as winning and doing all the little things it takes to be a winner.”
The 34-year-old Morton East grad played quarterback in high school and played at Harper, then obtained his bachelor’s degree at Illinois-Chicago. He has a master’s degree from both Chicago State and Concordia.
Teonic became Harper’s coach in 2006 and that year his team led the conference in passing yards. The Hawks led the nation in passing yards in 2007 and 2008 and won the non-scholarship national junior college title in 2008 with an 11-1 record.
Teonic’s initial prep coaching stint included the offensive line at Riverside-Brookfield when that school’s wild passing attack caused scoreboards to light up in setting 78 state records. After Harper, Teonic was an assistant at York one year before becoming Hersey’s coach.
At Hersey, Teonic turned around a program that was 8-37 the previous five years. Hersey went 17-20 in four years, including last year’s Mid-Suburban East title, the school’s first conference crown in 37 years. In Teonic’s first year, Hersey went 3-6, but started 3-0 and then lost four key players to injuries and several to suspensions, including the starting quarterback.
Now comes trying to turn around a program that has fallen behind Batavia, Geneva and both St. Charles schools in the Upstate Eight River.
“I want players to know the reasons we’re doing things, to buy in and understand,” Teonic said. “When a change is made, sometimes seniors get lost in the shuffle, but we are not going do that. We’ll bank on them pushing themselves.
“I want to create a culture and atmosphere where everyone — freshmen through seniors — wants to always get better.”
Royals players will get the chance to meet Teonic later this week, likely Wednesday. He inherits a program with 27 departing seniors.
“He has forgotten more than I learned in my 11 years as a coach,” Ribbens said. “His knowledge of every aspect of the game was evident from the first time I met him. He impressed our search committee completely as an educator.”