My favorite story of 2024 was undoubtedly Chicago Christian’s football team coming seemingly out of nowhere to win the Class 2A state championship.
The Knights had 10 senior starters, nine of whom started on both offense and defense, and most of them had been going to school together since they were little kids.
While the unbelievable story of the 2025 class ended — on the football field, at least — with a remarkable 47-0 win over Maroa-Forsyth in the 2A title game on Nov. 29, one heck of a postscript was added on March 26.
That’s when the school celebrated with a signing day ceremony honoring nine seniors who committed to play college football.
Brock Sperling is headed to Western Illinois, Caden Boersma is going to Bethel in Minnesota, Kerry Teague committed to Albion in Michigan and Kenny Jager signed with Wheaton.
Twins Niko and Demo Griggs are both good to go for Taylor in Indiana, while a trio of Knights — Christian Flutman, Eddie Van Dellen and Chase Sytsma — is bound for Calvin in Michigan.
For a team with 35 total players on its roster, including 13 seniors, having nine move on to play in college is almost as remarkable of a feat as winning the state championship.
“This is by far the most college commits from one team we have seen in our school’s history,” Chicago Christian athletic director Mark Zylstra said.
And one-third of the group will be sticking together in college.
Flutman is a quarterback/defensive back. Van Dellen is a receiver/defensive back. Sytsma is a two-way lineman. All committed to Calvin, an NCAA Division III program in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“This is huge, just like the smile on my face,” Flutman said. “For the longest time, football has been my favorite sport and the thing that I enjoyed the most, so actually being able to play four more years of football, that’s something that only God could do.
“Definitely bringing those two guys with me, who are really good friends of mine, is going to make it a really good experience.”
The trio all committed to Calvin within a week in February, but they never considered themselves a package deal.
“It played out kind of cool,” Sytsma said. “None of us had talked about committing to the same place but we all ended up doing it.”
The three said they compared some notes on Calvin but never tipped their hands to each other.
“It was all under the radar,” Van Dellen said. “We all kind of told each other, ‘Yeah, I liked it.’ But we never really said, ‘Let’s all go there.’ It just kind of happened organically.
“We all met with the coaches and really liked what they had to say.”
Like many other things that have happened in the last seven months, the signing day ceremony seemed surreal for many of the honorees.
Van Dellen and Sytsma said they never imagined playing college football before this season.
“I didn’t really expect this until the end, after all the success,” Van Dellen said. “Nine of us signing, I could not see this coming at all. I didn’t see myself playing college football, and same with a few of the other guys.
“It’s all a little bit weird, but it’s really cool.”
Quite the capper on an unforgettable season.
“I still can’t get over the fact that we won the state championship,” Sytsma said. “It’s something that I’m still riding very highly.”
When the ceremony ended, four of the players who signed — Flutman, Van Dellen, Sytsma and Sperling — headed across the street to play baseball as the Knights beat Bremen 12-3.
That was apropos for a school that relies on multisport athletes and a football team that leaned on multiple two-way players.
Now, nine of them will add to this team’s legacy at the next level.
“It’s super special,” Sytsma said. “I’m really happy for everyone here. I know God’s going to do great things in their lives and this next chapter is going to be really exciting for everyone.”
I hope that next chapter is as memorable for them as this previous one was for all of us who were fortunate enough to witness it from the sidelines and grandstands.
Hats off to an unforgettable group.
