Whitson family having an interesting season

Like many fathers and sons, Dave and Bryan Whitson have a pretty tight bond.

They go fishing together, pheasant hunting and camping, too. And before Bryan got too good, they used to take each other on in video games.

Over the summer, they even teamed up to finish the basement in their home, working elbow to elbow as they did almost everything themselves.

"He's even handier than me," Dave said of Bryan, a straight-A student who aspires to be an architect. "It turned out pretty nice down here. We like it a lot. It's a great place to watch sports."

Particularly football.

Football is also big with the Whitson boys. Only this fall, after years of sharing the game together on the sidelines, Bryan is pretty much on his own.

For as long as Bryan has been alive, Dave has been a football coach.

This fall, he was supposed to be Bryan's coach, in what had long been Bryan's most anticipated year in football.

Bryan is a senior cornerback at Mundelein High School. Last year, his opportunities with the varsity team were scarce and he played in mostly junior varsity games.

This year, Bryan finally earned a starting spot on varsity, and was eager to give his dad an up-close-and-personal look at his best stuff.

But since Dave resigned last fall from his position as head football coach at Mundelein, Bryan's dream of playing varsity ball for his dad is now going unfulfilled.

For Bryan, it makes Mundelein's 0-4 start this season sting all the more.

"It's tough," Bryan said. "I always thought I'd be playing for him when I got (to varsity)."

Ever since he was in kindergarten, back when Whitson was the head coach at Prairie Ridge, Bryan has served as a ball boy for his Dad's teams, biding his time until he got to be one of those lucky players instead.

"I always saw all the kids on my dad's teams having so much fun with my dad. I always thought about being a part of that," Bryan said. "Even if he wasn't my dad, I think I would have really looked forward to the experience because it just looked so great.

"But because he was my dad, too, it made it even better and I think I looked forward to it even more."

Dave Whitson took over as the head coach at Mundelein in 2004, after a successful run at Prairie Ridge in which his teams there qualified for the playoffs in each of his final three seasons.

In Whitson's first year at Mundelein, the Mustangs went 5-4 and made the playoffs. The struggling program seemed to be on the rise.

But that high didn't last and Mundelein won only 8 games over the following three seasons and failed to qualify for the playoffs again under Whitson.

Whitson says that he took the losing extremely hard. He gained weight, he brought his stress home with him, and he wasn't often fun to be around.

"I came home last year and I was depressed 24/7," Whitson said. "I think I've probably gained about 35 pounds since coming to Mundelein because of all the stress with football. It wasn't a healthy situation.

"Every little thing would set me off. My wife hated it, I hated myself. When I came home, the kids would stay away from me. It wasn't good."

Neither was public sentiment.

Rumblings about the football program and its lack of progress could be heard frequently throughout the halls at school. As Bryan and his younger sister Ally reported back to Dave that the comments were only getting worse - to the point that Ally sometimes came home in tears - Dave knew that he had to do something.

"I had my end-of-the-year meeting with (Mundelein athletic director) Perry Wilhelm (last November) and the first thing he said to me was, 'Dave, I don't think we're going to have you back as football coach next year,' and that I could either resign or that they would have to do what they had to do," Whitson said. "I wasn't surprised. I think a lot of the kids had lost confidence in playing for me.

"Before the meeting, I had thought about the possibility of resigning and whether or not I should do it. But I went in thinking that I wanted to try to coach at least one more year."

Dave wanted one more chance to get things right at Mundelein.

And he wanted one more chance to make football talk about my dad and stuff like that. People would come up to me and say things like, 'I hate your dad,' just because we had to do extra sprints in practice. Or I'd hear all those things in the hallway. That was tough. I didn't like it.

"And I could see that my Dad wasn't having as much fun as he used to have. It just wasn't a good fit anymore."

Dave says that he's in a much better fit now.

He still teaches driver's education at Mundelein, but after school he now does scouting work for the Northwestern University football team.

Meanwhile, he's happier, less stressed and healthier. And he's also enjoying the chance to be a normal parent, which gives him the rare opportunity to just sit back and watch his son play.

"I would have loved to coach Bryan this year," Whitson said. "That's a rare bonding experience you can have with your son that can be so special. But I think we've all realized that we needed this change."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com