 Oh, you're wet, dude. I don't think you're all right. I adore on behalf of the NCAA with our 2022 NCAA Division three national champions, the North Central College Cardinals winning their second national championship in program history. From my left to my right on the stage we're joined by head coach Brad Spencer who wins a national championship in his first year at the helm. Ethan Greenfield, Luke Lanin, Sam Teviani, and Antoine Walker, five representatives of the national championship team. Coach Spencer, opening remarks are yours. Thank you. Well, I mean, you're super proud of the men to my left and all of our team, all of our players, our staff putting in all the work they needed to be Mount Union here and the entire season. It's hard to win football games. It's hard to win football games against teams of the caliber that we've played. And our coaches, they stopped at nothing to get these young men prepared and put them in positions to win. That's our job is to put guys in positions that they can succeed, ask them to do things that they can do, and our staff did a great job doing that. And then our players did the rest. You win with great people, and when you have great football players, you can win a lot. And so we found that magic combination with this group here certainly could not be more proud of our fifth year seniors for what they've done since they walked in here in 2018. Three stag bulls, two national titles, three conference titles, a Galerney Trophy winner. They've totally risen the standard for us. But perhaps more importantly, they've risen our standard off the field in the classroom and in the community. And they've defined what it is to be a cardinal football player and to live out our core values and our mission statements. And that's what I'm most proud of. I'm most proud of our coaching staff and our players believing in that, believing in being all-American fathers, husbands, and teammates and allowing themselves to compete for championships on and off the field. And then beyond that, I'm just thankful they believe in me as a first-time head coach. They joked in January, I'm the new old guy. That's 19th year on staff, but 41st year around North Central. But certainly don't have all the answers. Don't have it all figured out. But I knew we had a great staff. I knew we had great young men. And we had a superb group of seniors coming back that could make up for any mistakes that I made. And so these guys don't make many mistakes. And I'm super proud of how they played tonight. Mount Union made us fight, scratch, crawl, claw. But that's what football is. That's what football is in December. You've got to be able to control the line of scrimmage, block, tackle, and then most importantly play for each other. And above everything, I think our guys wanted to play for each other. They wanted to win for each other. And after the sting of last year, here, there is a burning fire in their bellies since last December. And I think they quenched it today. I know how bad these guys sitting up here wanted it. I know how bad our younger, our underclassmen wanted it for our seniors. They wanted to get it done for the seniors, not for themselves, for the seniors. And the great thing is that our seniors wanted to get it done for them. And I think that's what cardinal football is. It's loving each other. It's playing for each other. It's supporting each other. It's being the best version of yourself on and off the field. Thank you, Coach Spencer. With that, we'll open up to questions from the members of our media and communications teams. Coach, congratulations. First, if you can talk about the end of the game there, you guys go up 21 to nothing on the first play of the fourth quarter. And then suddenly it turns into a shootout. Take me through what that's like on the sideline. I'm sure you didn't think you had it in the bag, but I don't know if you expected the final score to be what it was at that point. You know, our sideline didn't waver. They're at fingers. There's no, I don't even see concern. It's really, it's just, it was encouraging. It's pulling guys up to the standard that's saying, hey, we got the next play. We're gonna make the next play. We've got this. I really don't think our belief changed at any single point. I know mine didn't. It felt like we were gonna get it done. And you know, how you get it done, it maybe changed a little bit there in the last, you know, 10, 12 minutes. Gotta give them credit. I mean, they have all kinds of playmakers and you saw how fast they can make plays. But fortunately our guys, they hung tough. They stood their ground. They trusted each other. They trusted each other to make the plays when we needed to make the plays. And fortunately it turned out our way. And I think the better football team won today. We just needed to stick in there a little bit. That we had, you know, offensively we had all kinds of opportunities, I think to put the game away early or at least to get up a little bit more early. Certainly at the end of the half, missing a field goal. There were some points left out there for sure. But you know, the guys didn't get discouraged. You know, at half it was, hey, we could be up 24, nothing right now or 28. And you know, let's just get out there and do our thing. Let's make the adjustments that we need to make so we can get the, you know, running game going a little bit. And fortunately we were able to get, you know, just enough plays there when we needed to and our defense and then special teams, you know, recovering two on sides and a half, that's remarkable. I mean, you work it every single day, every single week. And we've never, we've not put our hands team out there yet this year. And then now we do the last two kicks in game 15. And they did their job. That's credit coach Wood, our special teams coordinator. And a credit to the, you know, 25 or 30 guys that we have there in every special teams meeting, bots and their bots to make sure that we win a football game. Gotta win in all three phases. And overall we did that tonight. Can I ask you and Luke to talk about the big third down scramble. They kicked the, they do the onside kick. You recover three and a half minutes left. Ethan gets stopped on the first two. Take me through the play call. Luke, take me through what happens. Sure. There are a couple of overhangs on the backside of our zone run game. And we felt like if we could bring Alec back over there, their first one was going to chase Ethan down the heel line. He did and Alec made a great, I mean, that's a long block to make that block for four or five seconds and give Luke time to pull that football and then get out around him. I mean, yeah, Luke's fast. He's probably one of, if not the fastest kid on the field. But that's still a long block and that's a hard block. It's something that Alec and her tight ends coach, coach fairly work every single day. And we've run that play a lot down the road here. In the last four or five weeks, his teams have really tried to pack the box to stop Terrence and Ethan. We felt like it was, we had some of the zone read polls all day, but they had one guy left and so we made an adjustment. Credit to Coach Studeman for doing that and these guys took care of the rest. Luke? Yeah, just like Coach was saying, they always had an extra guy for me. So all that play call was a great play call, getting Alec around like Coach was saying, we get that one guy left. All I knew how to do, because that guy was crashing down every time. I just knew how to get around the block and then from there, I just had to run fast. I guess I just need to say it like that, but I mean, that was a big play for us. I was happy I was able to make it for these guys. How did you guys get the ball in the second half to that point? Had I carried the ball? In the second half to that point. I think you had a bunch of firsts. I think I had a couple. They had the extra guy for me sometimes and they were making good plays on me the whole second half. So when I did pull it, I wasn't really getting many yards. You guys have just completed one of the most dominant Division three football seasons I've seen, number one defense, number one offense, margin of victory, all of that. Tell me about the refuse to lose mantra that exists in your program and how that feeds into the kind of focus and discipline that it takes to be this excellent every week, every quarter for 15 weeks. Any of our student athletes wanna answer that? Yeah, all right. So I mean like the refuse to lose mantra has been around since Coach Spencer was playing here. And so it's always been a staple of our program just talking about, it means more than football. It's refuse to lose in life. Like make sure that no matter what you're doing, you're doing it your best. You're refusing to let anything get in your way when we talk about it with school, with life, because obviously football is only temporary but working and having a family relationships are what's to come. And then we talk about just refuse to lose with never stepping down, never letting go, never picking your foot off the gas pedal no matter what the situation is. And it's something that we say that like it's a choice you make. It's not about like if you have it in you or not, it's a choice that you make to refuse to lose. And even games that we've lost, we still say it because it's still important even regardless if you wouldn't lose, it's still something important to always remember because football is only, as I said before, just one aspect of life there's a lot more that's more important than that. Sam and Ant won both big parts of the defense. Could you elaborate on Ethan's remarks? Yeah, first step into this program, so we have it on our locker room. I am a champion and I refuse to lose as we got to practice. Like that was like, that became my favorite saying because like, I don't know, like there's something, I think that's just a way I would forever live my life. I know it is. No matter what I do, I refuse to lose no matter what. And it's just like, and doing it for your brothers and how tight knit this team is, it shows that like, that game right there just shows that we refuse to lose. And everything that we do, not just football, but in life. Yeah, I mean, Ant won, hit it on the head. We just have this huge commitment to one another and we just, when we're out there on the field, we just, there is no hurt, there is no tired. There is no feeling sorry for yourself. There's just a refuse to lose mindset and it really is all just a mindset. We just want to do everything we can for our brothers to win and do everything we can for them. Luke, would you like that too, as well? Yeah, just to add a little bit, I would say like, Toddie was kind of talking about how we do anything for our brothers, there's no hurt. That just comes down to the love we have for one another. That's probably one of the biggest parts of our team, that's what makes us so special. And I'm super happy to be a part of a team that loves each other as much as we do. Thank you. Next question comes from the back of the room. Yeah, Coach, guys, first off, big congrats. I know you're gonna hear that a lot, so don't want to sound like a broken record. Coach, you had said before how you want North Central, the program to be up there in the conversation with the purple powers of D3, second championship in the last handful of years. Do you feel like you've reached that pinnacle yet? Coach, thoughts on any of you guys as well? No, we're not, but I say that in that we've been to the last three stag bulls. It's a start, it's a start. And a ship without a rudder is gonna go every direction. And so we feel like that's our heading, that's our point, that's our, is to try and reach that. If Jim Miller, if that wasn't my goal being hired at the end of January, then Jim Miller's hiring the wrong person. And you'd probably say the same thing about, Coach Storm would have said the same thing. He set us on that trajectory. And it's my job now to protect that culture and to perpetuate it and to keep it moving forward. And so that's the direction you have to go. But when you look at those three programs, the history that they have, it's pretty incredible what they've done. And now Mount Union being back to another stag bull, I think they're in 18 of 20. Aaron Baylor was in four of five until this year. Whitewater during their streak was like in seven of nine. That's incredible. So to be in the last three, it's a good start. As an alum, how satisfying is this for you in your first year to be delivered the hardware back to Illinois? Yeah, thanks for that question. Well, I guess I've set the standard pretty high, but that standard was already pretty high when I got the head job in January. It means a lot, and I think it's 11 of our 20 coaches, our alums, there's a lot of blood in the bricks. There's a lot of alums in other parts of the college coaching, and I've known our athletic director my entire life, our baseball coach, I was a batboy for. I've grown up on North Central's campus around the college, watching players when I was eight, nine, 10, 11 years old. I still remember the names, you know, Joe Sovin and Pet O'Shlager and Bob Murray. Like those guys, the pictures were up in my locker. So to be able to do this as an alum for those guys means a lot because they have a lot of pride. I get emails and text messages all the time from guys who played in the 80s and 90s that I watched when I was my son's age. How proud they are of where we're at and what we've done, and I'm super blessed to have been a part of this for the last 19 years, you know, coaching and playing under John and Jeff Thorn and being able to have a hand in where we're at today. And so then to step into the head role in your first year and win a national title, first thing I would say is it's not about me, it's not because of me. It's because of our coaching staff and because of our young men and our fifth year seniors. And that is 100% true. There's no part of me that thinks this is because of me. It's because of our players and our staff and our administration putting us in a position to be able to coach football, recruit the right type of young men and coach them the way that we want to coach them. But I have a lot of pride for North Central. I've been here all my life. So it means a lot. It's something that probably as time goes, we'll sink in a little bit more. Because right now I'm just really ecstatic and happy and overwhelmed for our current players, our guys that are here right now because they deserve it so bad. I've seen what they've done. I've seen how hard they work to see how much they love each other. I've seen what they've put into this. They deserve to be national champions and that's what it's about. Thank you, coach, to answer for that really personal answer. Another question from the back of the room, Gordon. Ethan, can you contrast for me what it was like to win the title as a sophomore in a total blowout and now the title as a senior in a much closer game? The difference between the two, how you feel, especially with this one coming at the end of your career. Yeah, definitely a little bit of a different feeling. Obviously, being a champion feels amazing regardless of kind of how it happened or how it led up to it or how old you were. But this year definitely felt just a little more, a little more personal, a little more special. I mean, it felt special for so many reasons. I mean, the guys that are also fifth years who would like Sam, who we sat down together shortly after the maddie and was like, after we lost and said, we gotta come back. We can't end like that for a lot of reasons, left a horrible taste in our mouths. And then what added a little bit to it was Coach Spencer being named the head coach. We were like, we want the best for him too because we love him. So that was one of the reasons that why we all decided to come back other than the fact that we just love this program in this school. But tonight it's been very special for a lot of reasons. I mean, my teammates deserve to be champions because that's how they work and that's the people that they are. They deserve it more than anything else. And so does him right here. He's given the praise to everyone else but he deserves it too. I mean, just, it's a, I mean, that's why it's a team. Every single person was important for this win tonight. Every single coach, every single player dressed, every single player, our team was in the stands. People who were at home, everybody was a part of this. That's something we talk about that it's not just the starting 11 win it or the starting offensive, starting defensive guys that travels. Every single person in our program who's helped us get to this point wins and is a champion as well. So I think that just ending it off like this with just extremely fun. And I've been very blessed with the people around me and just ending it tonight. I mean, close game, not close game, whatever, whatever the outcome would have been. I think it would have still had the same feelings of just, I'm just very gracious and very thankful for everything that's transpired these last five years. Ethan, I know football's a team game and you guys are playing for the national championship, but there was a special moment before kickoff today when you were named the Galardian player of the year. What was that moment like for you? Obviously your entire team was on field warming up when that announcement was made. Yeah, so I found out a little earlier. So on Wednesday, we had a team dinner and Frank came and announced it and I got absolutely mobbed for about a minute by my teammates. Pretty sure there's a video on Twitter, but that was a really cool thing just, I mean, for me. And then I think for everyone else too, just because as I just said, it's still a team sport. I can't do anything without the people who I worked with without my offensive line. Absolutely working their every living butts off every day to make me the way I am. Same with our tight ends and same with Luke and our receivers and even guys on the defense. I mean, going against them in summer camp and in practices every day makes you a much better football player because they're that good. So I wanted to make, because I talked a little bit to the team, I wanted to make sure that it's not just about me because it isn't, because I didn't do that by myself. I can't do that by myself. I had so many people to help get me there from when I was a freshman playing with Ricky Sterba and Colton Bach and that guys in that 2019 team, just all the different people who's been in front of me that I've played with got me there. And I think that's the important thing because even though my name's on it, it wasn't me who put in just all the work. There was a lot of other people who contributed to that. Well, congratulations on that for sure. I think the next question was from Keith. Folks, I'm tasked with writing the long, the big picture piece. And for me, the thought is that you guys are now the kings, not just of this season, but you take two stag bowls, two championships and being in the past three stag bowls. When you first came, whether you've been here five years or less than five years, I'm sure you thought a championship was a possibility, but did you think that being the kings, the ones on the top of the mountain in D3, now that the team that everyone else is gonna be gunning for, did you think that was possible and what's your reaction to hearing those words being spoken? Yeah, so I'll answer that one. So my first step in this program, like, after getting around my teammates and the coaches and things like that, like, I knew we were nothing but champions. Just the culture, the culture that we have here is just like unbelievable. I've been a part of two other programs and the culture is nothing like this. And this is like, it was the best feeling, the best decision I ever made in my life. One of them, actually, but one of the best decision I ever made in my life was to come here to North Central and from the start, we are like, the moment I stepped here and got around everyone, I knew that we were a championship caliber team. Yeah, I think when I came in, I remember Coach Storm recruited me and one of the things he said is we're on the cusp of being national championship contenders. And I mean, I 100% believed him and I remember my high school teammate and still teammate, Jake Johnson went to my high school and I remember he told me, or we talked and he said, hey, we're ring chasing. Now I went to the same school and that's kind of what we said before I even showed up to fall camp. And then I remember after we lost to Bethel in 2018, I had a psychology class, this is a weird story but I remember this very vividly, I was in a psychology class and they asked and they told us to like draw a timeline of your life of like past major events and then future events that you think like when you're gonna get married, when you're gonna have your first kid, blah, blah, blah. And I remember I wrote down 2019, it's like 2019 national championship, 2021 national championship, 2022 national championship and two out of three is not bad. So this has always kind of been there and I think that we had that mindset of have big dreams and like in everything you do and that was it, we're just chasing big dreams and now we're at a point where it's only keeps getting bigger. I mean as coach was talking about where we took the right step, we're taking the right steps to become the top tier division three team but we're not there yet and that's the next year's team job is to keep taking the next step. Sam or Luke, would you like to add to that were you inspired by any classes you took? No, I'll just go back to the original question. When I first got here in 2018, I just knew this place was completely different than all the others. I mean all the guys that I met, everyone was just so welcoming and the culture at this school was just unbelievable and I loved every minute, minute of it and I have never seen a coaching staff work as hard as this coaching staff. I mean they put in countless hours. I was so impressed when I first got here that I was like holy crap, these guys worked so hard. So that was just awesome and I just knew this place was special when I first got here. Okay, so for me it could be a little bit different just because I joined a team the year after they had just won the national championship. So that was a big attention getter for me like hey, these guys were actually really good at football. Should probably think about going there. So I ended up making the decision to come here just because of, I mean Greeny was my overnight host so that's when I first met him when I was a senior in high school. Like a month after they'd won the national championship and I just saw the love that each player had for each other no matter what year they were in school, what position they played. Everybody just had a love for one another and I just wanted to be a part of that. I knew that like Tommy was saying that this place was special. I mean I knew that we'd be a championship caliber team just because obviously they just won it and I felt like I could be a person that could come in and help them keep getting to stable appearances. Sam, I mean I did the past two years so I'm really happy I got to do with these guys. I'm really glad I came here. A lot of good choices up here. Another question from the back of the room. Ethan and Sam just being fifth year guys know that when I sat down with Coach Spencer back in the spring he said that a lot of his tactics was gonna be re-recruiting you Sam and I just want both Ethan and Sam if you guys can comment being fifth year is just you've talked about your experience and all the awards, stats they only tell so much of the story I just want to get your guys' thoughts on a recap of your football careers in North Central. Yeah I mean I was debating coming back for my fifth year. I mean these guys all know it. I sat down with Coach Spencer, Coach Durkin and I gotta say it's one of the best decisions that I've ever made. I mean the relationships that I built with the freshmen even this year have been incredible and I just got closer to everyone else on this team and to go out a champion like this it's just surreal. Like it is the best feeling in the world. So I'm just so happy that I chose to come back for my fifth year and shout out to all these guys for convincing me to come back. I'm just, it's just awesome. It's the most special moment of my life. Oh yeah I mean a journey that me and Sam has had from freshmen has been obviously a fun one and I'm glad that the guys the fifth years decided to stay and came back and Sam was a little late to get him and he had a job lined up and stuff so he's had to put some a lot of stuff on hold to be here but I think that just shows testament of how special like this program is. I mean take away football championships and all that stuff. I mean I have met some of the greatest people in my life through this program and it has been something so special and it's gonna be my family for the rest of my life and that's just how I would sum it up. Another question from the back of the room. Yeah Ethan, you've been a two time national champion. You've been the MOP of this game. Two times you're now a Golarney trophy winner. You've had one of the best careers in division three history. I know this is all kind of wrapped up in the last hour and it's a lot has happened in the last 72 hours but have you had a chance to reflect on your place not just in North Central history but division three football history? Not really. I think that I was surprised a few times this year when just even like they like after we played Wheaton saw like a tweet that said that I had like the rushing record for the conference and I was like, I didn't even know I was close to that and all of a sudden I'm seeing stuff saying I'm like close on the nationalists and it was like I didn't know any of this. I just I just play football and I haven't really had time to really sit down and think about it and I will coming up now I was a little thing too focused on week by week watching film playing games and stuff like that but I think I'll have that moment soon. I think it's gonna be really cool to reflect on that but I mean at the end of the day what's important is just winning games and I think that's something that I focused on my whole career and probably a reason why I never really noticed a lot of that stuff for a while. That's the question from Sam Atkinson. Antoine can you just break down your assignment today it was such a marquee matchup against Wayne Ruby you guys going back and forth second half it was a battle there in the fourth quarter can you just break down how your assignment went and if you were excited for that? No, I mean going into this game we knew that he was a talented receiver and he came out and showed it tonight it was a great battle, it was a lot of fun you know what I'm saying and yeah it was a great it was a great matchup and we battled the whole game and then at the end of the day we came out as champions so that's what matters the most. And Ruby was targeted 14 times only had nine receptions so pretty good job shutting him down. Additional questions from members of our audience? Not coach, I'll leave you with an opportunity to give us some final thoughts and any of the players you'd like to give some final thoughts on your 2022 national championship. You know final thoughts, appreciate you know just a lot of appreciation. We've talked about appreciating the people in our program but you know appreciate all of you covering this and making this such a great event Navy and Stevenson for hosting it it was really first class and we appreciate that these young men on both teams they deserve that they and the coaches too they work their tails off and so to have I see JJ standing outside and JP's probably not too far away to have, yeah I said your name. To have them put in all the work on Matt Moore who's our rep for our team to put in all the work that they put in it's no small task at all and we appreciate that it's this is a great stage for these guys I can't thank you know Frank and D3 football and everybody for covering us the way that they have it was great to have some of you guys at our games and to see Benedetti Whirly and CNOR Central. So really it's just appreciation for doing this for these young men and allowing them to live out a bold game and live out their dreams of being champions and to do it the right way they deserve that and I guess I'm appreciative of that that doesn't go unseen from me or in our program. So thank you to all of you for doing that and allowing us to have fun and to wear these hats and have these patches and to play on in this stadium, this memorial stadium at such a powerful place to play this Navy Marine Stadium and all the memorials to all the different places that they've battled. It was fun to see our guys battle for each other here probably the same way Navy battled for all of their alums but it was just say thank you and we really appreciate and love these young men and so proud of them and we're gonna miss our seniors and gosh why you gotta talk about the things that Ethan did and he's graduating like can we at least celebrate this for like a day before I have to think about replacing him and replacing Sam but that's what our program does and these guys have done a great job of mentoring our young men and the freshmen and sophomores and the juniors and showing them what this is and what this should be and how to achieve this and how to fight and how to battle but also more than that I'm so proud of them for developing the standard of what it is to be disciplined, resolute and generous within our program on and off the field and in the classroom and when I can get emails from professors about Danny Lester or AJ Vaughn or other guys staying after class pushing the chairs and pick up the mess that other people left then we're doing the right things we're producing to all American fathers, husbands and teammates and that's what it's about like Ethan said, football is such a small part of their lives, we wanna be preparing them for the next 40, even NFL players are not gonna play, they have the rest of their life they have to do something so for these guys, these guys get it I guess is what I'm saying these guys get it, they understand it and at the end of the day I think that's what division three athletics is supposed to be about it's supposed to be about student athletes getting that and getting that piece and I know there's schools all across the country that are doing similar things and having great young men go out and do great things, it's not just North Central but I know these guys, I love these guys I know what they do, I know what they're about they deserve this, they're the national champions and I can't be more proud of them for that I think that puts a nice bow on it thank you very much Coach Spencer Brad Spencer, Ethan Greenfield, Luke Lainan and we also of course had Sam Tabiani and Antoine Walker, you're 2022 NCAA division three national champions the Stag Bowl 49 winners the North Central College Cardinals congratulations gentlemen, enjoy it thank you for joining us thank you thank you thank you thank you I know I said you're sticking thank you