Photos from the 2007 Chicago Kickoff Classic football day at Soldier Field
It’s hard to explain how big high school football was in Illinois during the 1990s & 2000s. Millennials were in their prime high school days, so there were actually more kids in class than during the Baby Boom. One of the affects was high school football in Illinois was drawing enough eyeballs to have regular coverage in all the newspapers and TV stations too.
One of the things that came to be was a the Chicago Kickoff Classic, at least that’s what I think they called the event. It was a three game high school football spectacle between some of the best Chicago Catholic League and Chicago Public League teams. The first year was 2005 featuring Mount Carmel vs Morgan Park and two other games. The 2006 games featured a Catholic League vs East Suburban Catholic match to start with Mount Carmel facing Joliet Catholic. Then Hubbard vs St. Rita and Simeon vs Fenwick.
The 2007 series featured Mount Carmel and Joliet Catholic again and Hubbard taking on Fenwick and St. Rita playing Simeon. There were other games played in following years, but this was the final series I attended as I stopped publication of the website Illinois High School Football Weekly and moved on to other tings.
The game was last played at Soldier Field in 2017, before being moved to NIU. I feel like this was roughly when the Chicago Prep Bowl stopped being held at Soldier Field and was moved around.
The 2007 JC vs MC game had one crazy ending, that you can read about here.
You can see and purchase all the photos from that game by following this link or by clicking on the photos.
https://vincentdjohnson.zenfolio.com/football-mt-carmel-v-joliet-catholic-2007-08-26
Fenwick vs Hubbard at Soldier Field 2007
Simeon vs St. Rita at Soldier Field 2007
Want to have a little fun?
Check out my Uni-Watch page. It’s full of different high school team jerseys. Some dating back as far as 1995.