Published: November 18, 2009 11:04 pm         

Final Four return 30 years in making for Marshall football

Marshall, Ill. — Thirty years ago, a Marshall football team made it to the Final Four of the Illinois Class 2A playoffs.

No team did that again until last week when the Lions defeated Casey in the quarterfinals to gain the semifinals of the 2009 playoffs.

The 11-1 Lions will try to make their own history on Saturday, taking on 10-2 Maroa-Forsyth at Bush Field for a spot in the championship game next week.

Dick Parker was the coach of the 1979 team and Brad Mars, one of the assistants on the current staff, was an All-State center and all-conference defensive tackle on the team.

The Lions were undefeated in the regular season, beating Casey 6-0 to win the Little Illini Conference.

“You had to win the conference then to make the playoffs,” said Parker. He said two of the coaches then were Ron Welsh at Oblong and Bob Durham at Casey. “They were quality coaches,” he said.

The Lions defeated Carterville and East St. Louis Assumption in the playoffs before losing to Decatur St. Teresa in the semifinals.

“St. Teresa went on to win the state,” he said this week.

He said Carterville was a 3A team and said the East St. Louis team was very good and very quick.

Mars said winning against the big-city team was the highlight of that season. “Fans were all around the field. It was a hard-hitting game and not many people gave us a shot to win,” he said.

Mars was one of the seniors on the 1979 team who went on to play college football. He started three years at offensive tackle at Eastern Illinois.

Brad Newton played at a junior college; Mike Staub played at Millikin and Andy Wilson at Southern Illinois.

Parker said Bill King was another starter on the team but was injured late in the season. “I brought up Troy Johnson, a sophomore, to play with the seniors,” he said.

Johnson went on to play at Indiana State and was on the ISU coaching staff after coaching the Lions. He now is the coach at Mattoon.

Jerry Parsley was one of the running backs on the team. His son, Patrick, is a member of this year’s team.

Dwayne Emanes was the quarterback and John Adams and Chuck Schmidt were two other key players on offense. “It was an outstanding team,” said Parker, who said several players came back for a reunion at the homecoming game this fall.

He coached the Lions from 1972 to 1979 before leaving teaching to sell insurance. He now is retired.

Before coming to Marshall, he was the football and basketball coach at Mahomet-Seymour and then was on the staff at the University of Illinois, coaching the freshmen offensive backs, and the head coach at North Central College at Naperville.

The playoffs started during his tenure at Marshall and four of his teams qualified including the first one in 1975. “At the beginning, there were just four classes instead of eight,” he said.

Mars is in his fourth season of helping coach the high school team. He said he and Todd Evers, now the coach, both started when this year’s seniors were freshmen.

“We coached the frosh-soph team our first year,” he said.

Comparing the two teams, he said, “We were a little bigger [in 1979] and ran the ball more. These guys can run or throw. They are a really good group of kids and enjoyable to be around,” said Mars.