NNHS’ home turf commemorates rich history

Do you know where Harshbarger-Welzel field is located? How about which team plays there? The answers to these questions may sound familiar, but they also might surprise you.

Harshbarger-Welzel Field is located at 899 N. Mill St., and is home to our very own Naperville North Huskies. This field serves a rich portion of Naperville history, not to mention exhilarating Friday night entertainment.

The field was the result of a massive fundraising campaign by the NNHS Booster Club, according to Sean Drendel, the Huskies’ head football coach and former team captain. Some of the fundraising activities included a run-a-thon and an antique sale. The campaign raised $140,000 in cash donations and received an additional $125,000 from the school board. It stands as a memorial dedicated to three well-respected members of the Naperville community and legends of Naperville football.

Brothers John and Don Harshbarger, along with Orville Welzel, were collectively on the coaching staff for NNHS for a total of 90 years. Welzel was the frosh-soph football coach for the former Naperville High School Redskins. Marcia Welzel, daughter of Orville, remembers her father’s work ethic and where it took him in life.

“Well, he was raised on a 100-acre farm in Iowa,” Welzel said. “Back then, boys had to do their chores. They couldn’t be lazy. So he was an extremely hard worker, and because of that, he went to Cornell College, was inducted into their hall of fame for sports, and then went on to get his Masters in Education from Columbia University.”

At Naperville High School, Orville taught math and drivers’ education and coached track, basketball and football. According to Welzel, her father motivated the young athletes on the football team as well as prepared them for the Joker.

With only one losing season, John “Joker” Harshbarger was one of the most successful coaches Naperville has ever seen, with a career coaching record of 102-31-11. At a time when Naperville played in the Little Seven Conference, it was common knowledge that they would play to dominate.

The three coaches were regarded as men of outstanding character by the community and received immense local recognition as a result. In a 1994 edition of “The Naperville Sun,” columnist Herb Matter recalled how they affected his life, over 40 years after their coaching careers ended.

“A person had about as much chance changing the [coaches] cast-in-concrete, Iowa-bred, soil-tiller beliefs about God, country, personal discipline, fair play, maintaining a healthy body, self-sacrifice and community service as [he] would have felling a Sequoia Tree with his Swiss Pocket knife,” Matter said.

Harshbarger-Welzel Field has been NNHS’ home field since its dedication in 1988. Before that time, the Huskies shared a stadium with their rivals across town, the Redskins. This often made for tough scheduling, intense rivalry matches and a sense of field-envy for the Huskies.

The thought of playing at Naperville Central’s Memorial Stadium seems unbearable to NNHS’ current generation. Senior offensive lineman Mitch Szymel feels grateful for the people who made Harshbarger-Welzel stadium a reality.

“If the booster club hadn’t raised the money to create the stadium, we’d still be playing at Central’s field,” Szymel said. “I don’t think me, or any of my teammates, could stand playing on their field. It’s not the turf itself, but the feud that we have going on with them.”

Fittingly, the first game the Huskies played on the Harshbarger-Welzel field was against NCHS. Ranked twelfth in state and coached by NNHS athletic hall-of-famer Larry McKeon, the Huskies were heavily favored to defeat the Redskins.

The Huskies did win, but by the skin of their teeth. When the Redskins gained a 6-12 lead early in the fourth quarter, the pressure had never been greater to win back the game. With just under six minutes left, quarterback Craig Eihl ran four yards to the end zone for the winning touchdown. Drendel, who helped block Eihl for the winning 4-yard rush, describes how this field has affected him since its opening night.

“It is a special place,” Drendel said. “From that first game until now. I still get that same feeling when we walk out of our locker room. You get a chance to show your skills in front of the people who care the most about you. I wouldn’t trade our setting for any in the state.”