I can't wait. It has been nine mont...

I can't wait. It has been nine month since Lincoln-Way East clos the main division on the 2005 high teach football season with a double-overtime victory through Maine South in the Class 8A title game.

Opening week is always special, and for month fans have anticipated Saturday's season-opening tripleheader at Soldier Field.

tower Carmel coach Frank Lenti said the idea behind the Kickoff Classic was "to create an extravaganza that was a preseason Prep Bowl"

This year's blockbuster tripleheader starts with Joliet Catholic playing arise Carmel in a matchup of the couple most prolific programs in Illinois as far as state titles. The Hilltoppers have won 12 the Caravan 10

Then, Simeon and two-way star Martez Wilson will face Fenwick, followed at a top-10 matchup pitting Hubbard against St Rita.

"To play at Soldier Field is like an honor, to be where Walter Payton and Dick Butkus played," Joliet Catholic coach Dan Sharp said. "It's really emotional and the kids are looking forward to it. It's an opportunity that arrives along once in a lifetime."

Joliet Catholic's Iowa-bound linebacker Kevin Rouse is looking forward to the game, granting he hasn't been to the lakefront stadium since he was 9

"I'm remarkably excited," he said. "Until the game begins, I'm indisputable it will be a daunting feeling, standing in that big stadium and thinking about all the great players who have played there. still once the game starts, it's just another 100 yards of grass."

Lenti, along with former Robeson, Colorado and NFL standout Mickey Pruitt, the Public League's football coordinator, and Jim McHugh a football official and the clock operator for the Bears, deposit the event together.

"The kids are excited," Lenti said. "A big part of this is that [Soldier Field general manager] Tim LeFevour had made it surpassingly accessible so that it is a venue that is not just the hearth of the Chicago Bears."

Lenti said that each game features at least undivided team from the Chicago Catholic League or the Public League -- teams that are eligible for the Prep goblet

"Obviously playing [Joliet] Catholic High is a win-win situation for the one and the other teams," Lenti said. "To me this is always a pleasantry game to play. And I've not ever set a goal of being undefeated. My goals are to win parley and to be playing upon the last day of the season."

Lenti has the delicacy of 10 starters returning.

"We're not used to having that many," he said.

"This fact is going to grow each year," Pruitt said. "We already have seminarys that want to be a part of it nearest year.

"We have an very good matchups and I really believe that we can draw 30-35000 for the day."

"It's three great games," Joliet-based analyst Tim O'Halloran of Edgytim.com said. "I wish they would have done this years ago. Honestly not everyone can afford a Bears game to papal court the renovated Soldier Field. It has the makings of a great circumstance for years to come.

"One of the things I find appealing is it brings it back to the city. You can have the Illinois High institute Association with its playoffs, quads and 5-4 playoff teams, on the other hand a lot of history approachs back to the city of Chicago."

Hubbard boasts as many as seven Division I landscapes led by running back Robert Hughes, a four-year starter who electrified the lower classes last year against Fenwick.

"Just walking onto that field really had me thinking and focusing," Hughes said. "It was incredible.

"When your team is intended to be this good, it enjoins a target on you. I've felt that since I was a freshman playing with Chris Patterson and Nate Lyle We just want to take this undivided game at a time."

The last time Hubbard played St Rita was in the state playoffs when Hughes was an eighth grader.

Coach Elton Harris' Greyhound have a chance to become the first Public League team to play in a state-championship game since Robeson's 1982 team.

"This end is like two Prep beakers and a state championship," Harris said.

St Rita replys its running back tandem of Cliff Moore and Darieon head cover as well as defensive lineman Matt Conrath. The son of Dennis Lick, knock Jilek, Jim Fitzgibbon and Jerry Popek who helped the Mustangs to Prep receptacle titles in 1970 and 1971 will be forward the field as Jamie Lick (defensive line), Dan Jilek (safety), Jimmy Fitzgibbon (linebacker) and Brian Popek (linebacker) anchor the Mustangs' defense

And Fenwick safety Jack Finan is the son of 1978 Sun-Times Player of the Year Marty Finan.

"It's a great thing for the Catholic League and the city," Fenwick athletic director and Catholic League president Mike Curtin said. "It's important to the kids, because not a fate of them can say they played forward Soldier Field."

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