When Brian Doll first arrived at Elk Grove in 2009, he said he was told the Grenadiers could never win championships.
Doll scoffed, shrugged it off and went on to win a Mid-Suburban East title in his third and final season at the school.
“I want to be the eternal optimist at all times,” Doll said. “It breeds confidence. I saw it at Elk Grove, and I see it at New Trier.”
Doll set the bar high in his first season with the Trevians, and he guided the team to its best season since 2003. New Trier finished 10-2, ending the year with a 38-10 loss to Stevenson in the Class 8A quarterfinals Saturday.
“We saw how he quickly turned around Elk Grove, and we thought why can’t that happen to us?” New Trier senior offensive lineman Nick Balch said. “With him, we all started believing we could be successful.”
Doll inherited a team that finished 5-5 in 2013 and lost in the first round of the playoffs.
According to Doll, every practice centered around what it took to win games. He made sure the coaching staff never spoke of losing to the players.
“You have to instill winning in them,” said Doll, a 1995 New Trier graduate who was an assistant coach for the Trevians from 2000-2009. “There wasn’t a time we said, ‘If you don’t do this correctly, we will lose the game. Or if this person doesn’t play, we are going to lose the game.’ We only focused on winning.”
The results were proof Doll’s methods worked. The Trevians won their first playoff game since 2008 and won two postseason games for the first time since 2003. The team’s losses came to teams with a combined record of 22-1.
New Trier will graduate 13 starters, including all five offensive linemen. But the Trevians expect to welcome back several key contributors such as sophomore quarterback Clay Czyzynski and junior linebacker Colin Casas.
“This season was the first building block,” Balch said. “I believe New Trier is going to be a powerhouse. Coach Doll always talks about the next man up. It’s now up to the juniors and sophomores to take what we’ve done to the next level.”
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