Andriola hired as Dundee-Crown football coach
The 17-week search for the fourth football coach in Dundee-Crown’s 37-year history concluded Thursday when athletic director Dick Storm announced the hiring of West Dundee resident Vito Andriola.
Previously a head coach at Grayslake Community High School (now Grayslake Central), Andriola, 56, compiled a record of 16-22 (.421) in four seasons with the Rams between 2001-04. His best year in Grayslake was 2003, when he guided the program to an 8-3 record and the first playoff victory in school history.
He has spent the last six seasons as the defensive coordinator at Glenbrook South under former McHenry coach Mike Noll. The Titans won 48 of 60 games during Andriola’s six seasons as coordinator and reached the playoffs each year.
He replaces Mike Davis, a 17-year veteran of the D-C football program whose coaching contract was not renewed after the Chargers finished without a win last fall for the first time since 1983. Dundee-Crown lost 51 of 63 games in Davis’ seven seasons as head coach.
“Hard work is what will take us in the right direction,” Andriola said. “When I took the job at Grayslake, they hadn’t won in a real long time. In our third year we won the first playoff game and had their best team ever. Same thing at (Glenbrook South) with Mike Noll.
“It’s doable with hard work, and that’s how we’ll go about our business. I’m going to try to make us the hardest-working program in the state of Illinois. We’re going to run the ball, we’ll play great defense and we’ll have great special teams.”
Andriola knows about hard work. In the 1970s, the West Leyden graduate became a three-time captain of the wrestling team at Western Illinois, and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physical education.
He taught for 14 years at Woodstock High School, where he was an assistant football coach for five years under IHSFCA hall-of-famer Bob Bradshaw. He was also an assistant wrestling coach at Woodstock under coach Jim Patton, a member of the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Hall of Fame.
Andriola also spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Larkin under Dale Schabert and did a short stint at Johnsburg when Bradshaw took the head coaching position.
A search committee comprised of approximately seven Dundee-Crown Booster Club members and parents and comparable numbers of teachers and administrators recommended Andriola as its top choice.
“A lot of times with these jobs you don’t get your first pick, but we got our first pick,” D-C athletic director Dick Storm said. “I know what Vito’s done, I know what’s he’s capable of doing and the thing I really like is he lives right here in Dundee. I’m extremely excited about him being here.
“We (interviewed) a whole lot of people. He knows our community and our kids, so I have no doubt he can turn this around. It’s always the principal’s call, but the consensus was that we all wanted Vito. It was very clear he was the obvious choice.”
Dundee-Crown Principal Lynn McCarthy was on the same page as the search committee when it came to choosing Andriola.
“Our goal is to bring winning football back to Dundee-Crown and Coach Andriola is the most qualified candidate for this position,” McCarthy said via press release. “He has experience working within some of the finest football programs in the suburbs, he has been a head coach and he brings with him a winning program and attitude. We also think he will be a great leader to our solid group of young coaches, who, like Vito, are eager to win football games.
“I would like to personally thank the district administration and our superintendent (Ken Arndt) for helping to bring someone of Vito’s stature to our football program. They share our desire and commitment to a winning football program at Dundee-Crown.”
Andriola will teach physical education at a yet to-be-determined school within District 300, he said, though he hopes to be teaching at the high school itself come fall.
“I think that’s imperative to get things going the way we want to go,” he said of teaching in the building. “The thing I do best is get kids to want to play. I think football is the greatest team sport in the world because you’ve got to get people to cooperate. And what we’ve been able to do throughout our career is make kids want to be part of something that’s greater than themselves, to be part of the whole.”