Luck not a Charger this season
Adversity, thy name is Orion.
Consider the case of Evan Viager, a 5-foot-9, 195-pound senior running back and linebacker for the Chargers. Head coach Chip Filler described him as the heart and soul of the team, the first athlete in the weight room and the last one to leave.
Viager spent Saturday’s Class 2A quarterfinal playoff game against Morrison on the sidelines, dressed in a T-shirt and sweat pants, Notre Dame hat on head and a cane in right hand to prop himself up.
On Thursday, two days before the Chargers were to meet the Mustangs, Viager awoke with a stomachache. He made it through the day, including a football practice he decribed as a “good one,” then went home that night. The pain in his stomach didn’t subside.
“They took me to the emergency room and my appendix was about to rupture,” Viager said. “I went into surgery right away.”
Filler got a phone call at 11:30 p.m. that night from Viager’s mother, appraising him of the situation. The surgery at Genesis Medical Center in Silvis went well, but there would be no more football this season.
Filler went to see Viager in the morning, then set about replacing him in the lineup. A sophomore, Zach Kahley, was called upon to fill Viager’s cleats, and he did so admirably with 25 yards rushing and a number of nice stops on defense.
Overcoming adversity was nothing new for this Orion crew. In fact, it was the norm this season from the beginning.
Filler, an assistant under Jason Van Houtte, was named head coach on the first day of practice.
Even an 8-1 regular season didn’t come without some tough times.
On Oct. 21, Brady Cantrell, a sophomore at Orion, committed suicide.
The week before a first-round playoff game against Stark County, it was learned Orion senior Derrick Andrae has brain cancer. He’s already had two surgeries. Several members of the football team were and are friends with Cantrell and Andrae.
“Throughout the season we dealt with things that high school kids shouldn’t have to deal with,” Filler said.
Morrison’s Kyle Janssen and coach Cory Bielema expressed admiration for the Chargers, especially for what they’ve experienced the last few weeks.
“It would be really hard to play, knowing you’ve went through a lot,” Janssen said. “They played a tough game, for what happened. Everything to them.”
“To be able to come out and play football is probably some type of release for them, to kind of get away from reality and such,” Bielema said. “I wasn’t aware of all that had happened in Orion. That’s another tip of the hat to them and their coaching staff to keep the kids together, focused on the task at hand and do an outstanding job.”
In a postgame meeting near the north end zone, Filler addressed his team. He talked about how proud he was to be their coach, to take the No. 1-ranked 2A team in the state down to the wire and almost pull out a victory. He talked about them losing games as underclassmen, only to blossom as varsity athletes.
He talked about his athletes being winners, just not on the scoreboard this particular day.
“The reflection of this season doesn’t happen now,” Filler said. “It’ll happen 10, 12 years down the line when these young men grow up. When life hands hands them adversity and life hands them turmoil, how are they going to respond? I’m pretty confident these guys are all going to do well later on in life.”
