From 1979 to 2026, the East St. Louis Sr. High School Flyers football team has been a gridiron juggernaut, winning 11 state championships and, in recent years, becoming nationally ranked for its consistent dominance.
So, when the good folks at Nike recently rolled up during a Flyers practice with a caravan led by a Rolls-Royce bearing a Flyers logo and trailed by two customized, Nike-branded full-size coach buses bearing the mantras “Chase the Smoke” and “All Gas, No Brakes,” it set off a social media frenzy.
And it was a fitting tribute that this team and its coach, Darren Sunkett, have more than earned for their tenacity, productivity and excellence, which have made the East St. Louis community proud and home games at Clyde C. Jordan Stadium a hot ticket. The stadium is better known as “The House of Pain.”
As it turns out, the nationally ranked Flyers have earned the rarefied distinction of being one of 40 “Nike Elite Schools,” which explains the gifts, including travel suitcases, tracksuits, footwear and blinged-out necklaces reflecting their elite status.
Now, juxtapose that rock-star treatment with the continued disrespect that the East St. Louis Park District, through its ineptitude, has shown these kids and other East St. Louis youth by having yet another summer of 100-degree temperatures to come and go with no swimming pool to cool off and not even a splash pad in over a decade.
Only recently, workers finally returned to complete work on the Lincoln Park pool complex after construction was halted and contractors walked off the job over a year ago due to the Park District’s failure to complete an audit, which was two years late at the time.
According to Millennium Construction’s Mark Kabureck, who spoke with FOX 2 investigative reporter Chris Hayes, the funds have been released and crews are back at work, with the complex expected to be completed by December and potentially open for the 2027 swim season — fingers crossed.
However, it’s a sad testimony that Nike has shown more gratitude, recognition and love to the East St. Louis Flyers than a Park District that has been remiss in its duty to provide a much-needed summer outlet for the youth of East St. Louis who more than deserve it.
In both Chris Hayes’ and my experience, including repeated visits to the Park District office and, in my case, repeated phone calls to Mike Collins, the director of the East St. Louis Park District, I’ve yet to receive the decency and courtesy of a return phone call.
The only politician promising that the youth “will be swimming soon” has been East St. Louis City Councilman Courtney Hoffman II, who has been wrong for the past two years. That’s also amusing, since the pool project is not under his purview. So go figure.
Perhaps the third year of promises will be the charm, just in time for Hoffman’s rumored run for mayor of East St. Louis. But we shall see.
Yet, East St. Louis remains the “city of champions,” with the successes and combined state titles of its high school football, basketball and track teams. They bring joy to a community in need of hope.
They, at least, deserve a swimming pool and a reason to return after college, military service or skilled trade education, bringing their talents, education, skills, youthful optimism and energy back to an East Boogie that poured into them, not ignored them.