Captain Berardi thankful
for service despite missed season
By Chris Walker
Sara Berardi wanted the villain she had just battled for 80 minutes to stare right back at her, clueless to what was about to unfold.
The Wheaton Warrenville South senior missed out on a lot of experiences during her final soccer season with the Tigers, including handing out sportsmanship awards to players on the opposing team after matches.
“It’s pretty cool,” she said. “They (opposing team players) look at us like we’re nuts. You definitely get some weird looks.”
The unique post-game sportsman award also has quite a distinct story to how it got started. Tigers coach Guy Callipari recalled coming across a box of pins in the athletics office years ago that he believed were an incentive of the DuPage Valley Conference to bring sportsmanship to the forefront, although no other sports program at Wheaton Warrenville South was using the pins nor were any other DVC teams. With an entire box of pins sitting unused, Callipari began handing one out after each match, regardless if the Tigers won or lost.
“The captains take the pin and walk over to the other group (team) which is usually having a final thought,” he said. “Usually they’ll step aside, and after years now of doing it, teams know it would happen. The captains will say a few words – we really respected the way you played the game and how you represented yourself and team - and everybody else will do a two-clap salute.”
While recognizing an opponent, the Tigers often eased the pain of tough losses by turning the attention away from them.
“What’s been good about it, is it’s really good on your end to make other people feel good, and it really took the sting out of losses pretty quickly,” he said. “Our girls were able to realize that there is much more to the game than the game itself and can walk out of here with their heads head high. Tomorrow will be here soon, and we’ll be fine.”
Eventually the bottom of the box of pins became bare and Callipari had to have special sportsmanship pins manufactured.
“This is something they can put on a shelf, it’s much bigger, and they can hold onto it,” he said. “It’s kind of a major feat on our part in trying to send that message, and it’s just worked nicely for us.”
And it’s one of the special responsibilities that the Tigers program bestows upon its captains, including Berardi.
“They wear the band to represent on the field with a voice,” he said. “They’re engaged in a lot of preseason stuff, and they look forward to not just the coin toss, but the awarding of the pin.”
Unfortunately for Berardi and fellow senior captains Abby Becker and Cami Terkildsen, the pins went unpinned this season.
Every year teams face different challenges, and we’d know by now how things would’ve played out for the Tigers. At this late juncture in the season, we’d know how teams had done by now. But by rewinding back a few months, Berardi was one of many girls fighting for an opportunity for playing time.
The Tigers only had a couple starters returning and an influx of players looking to fill the void created after 11 kids graduated in 2019 and combined for nearly four decades of high school soccer experience. No one knows how things would’ve played out for the Tigers, and no one knows really who would’ve played, where they’d play or how often.
“I don’t know if I was playing defense this year,” Berardi said. “In tryouts, I was put at midfield so I didn’t know if he was moving me to midfield. Not knowing the starting lineup, I didn’t know where he expected to play me. I was playing outside defender on club so I was hoping to continue doing that. I started for club so I was hoping to start at high school but never got to the point to decide.”
Callipari believed Berardi would’ve found her on-field role on the backline.
“She comes from a soccer family, from the parental to the brother so she’s been around the game a long time,” he said. “I was hoping she would step in at the left back position and give me some freedom to bring Becca (Hauenstein) up a little higher into the midfield, playing box-to-box, and we’d have to find an answer since that majority had graduated.”
Hauenstein was looking forward to playing with Berardi for a couple big reasons. The two have become close friends, yet haven’t had the time to really play much together. That was expected to change this spring, and Hauenstein was looking forward to more of an on-field connection as well as Berardi’s relaxing presence.
“She’s super calm and super confident with the ball,” Hauenstein said. “I feel confident when she has the ball, and she’s also aggressive with what she does. I’ve seen her go in for the tackle and all of a sudden the other girl is nowhere near her, and she has the ball.
“She can be aggressive for sure. We’d switch positions, where she would come in and vice versa, and do a good job covering for me, and this year I was hoping to be able to play outside forward or forward and make more connections. I was a looking forward to her calming presence. When she has the ball, you’re not worried she’s going to lose it. It’s what she’s going to do with it.”
Berardi appeared ready to rock her role.
“By all means she had the foundation of doing well and holding her own there,” Callipari said. “Her mental fortitude, she’s calm on the ball. She is a good athlete. I would not have seen her utilizing that position to get too much into the fray offensively. She would’ve been more of a stay at home, with the backline new.”
Fellow senior Meredith Follett has played with Berardi since the two were in the sixth grade and since the two have been stellar backline players, they’re often playing side by side.
“Sara is such a solid player, and she’s usually next to me because I was a center back and she was outside back,” Follett said. “She was always there for me, always the first to step, and a strong step, and I could always count on her to make a lot of major plays and sometimes it’s hit or miss with an outside back so it’s been nice to have her on my side with the confidence to step up and play.”
Sadly, Follett and Berardi weren’t going to play together this year pandemic or not. A knee injury ended Follett’s senior season before it even started. Berardi suffered along with the rest with postponements and continual pushbacks before the finality of ‘there isn’t going to be a season’ hit home.
“Even if I have a bad game, I feel confident knowing she’s there to support me so I’m going to miss playing with her,” Follett said. “She’s a calming presence on the field and always kept the energy going. She always had a good attitude while focusing on the game and ignoring the negatives.”
Without a doubt, it’s been a frustrating and disappointing situation this spring for millions of kids. Luckily for Follett and others who are close to Berardi, they have a friend who can keep them smiling even when times are tough like they have been this spring.
“Even with all this going down she has had a comedic presence and always brings a smile to your face,” Follett said. “I remember for club we had a lot of practice with fitness, and they’d be especially hard, but she’d always be there to bring a smile to your face, cracking a joke. She’s been by my side since sixth grade. She’s such a great friend to have.”
Even the prized experience of being a captain and a leader was cut short due to the coronavirus.
“We were already handling the team pretty well before the season got cut off,” Berardi said. “We were planning team bonding weekends and had one scheduled for the weekend of the week that everything got shutdown. We had to cancel a good amount of what we had planned for the season.”
Becker, Berardi and and Terkildsen had planned a surprise night at Dave and Buster’s for team activities.
“It’s usually a highlight of the year, and we usually keep it a secret until the day of and then we do tell them,” Berardi said. “Then we were hoping to do it later instead, after spring break once we went back to school, but that didn’t happen. Then we started to make Zoom calls but didn’t get any closure with the team bonding.”
As successful as Berardi wanted the Tigers to be on the field, she wanted to succeed in leading them the right away in a fun, enjoyable environment.
“I think would’ve taken the role pretty well since I’m pretty close with the underclassmen, and I think they respect me as a player and a person,” she said. “I think with Cami (Terkildsen) and Abby (Becker) all the players would’ve respected us. We already were handling the team pretty well before season cut off, planning team bonding weekends.”
Although she was still in elementary school when her brother Anthony was a senior at Wheaton Warrenville South, she remembers his senior year, including his Senior Night, so she’s always had an idea of what her final go round could be like. But no one could’ve predicted it to unfold like it did.
“My dad used to take stats and stuff (for her brother’s games), and he didn’t have to drag me to the games with him,” she said. “He was a captain so I strived to be a captain and wanted it even more as time went on.
“They were pretty bad his senior year (6-13-2 in 2015), but he enjoyed it so much. I remember his Senior Night, and I always waited for it. Watching the teammates with the flowers, and senior pins on parents. It stinks that I didn’t get to do it.”
Anthony Berardi was a two-time all-DuPage Valley Conference selection and a three-year player who finished up at Loras College. Their father played at Northern Illinois University. Certainly, this wonderful game is something the Berardis are passionate about and Sara was really looking forward to seeing what she could do in her swan song for the Tigers.
“(Anthony) was a sweeper throughout college so we never played the same position, but he knew how to hold his own,” she said. “I try to be like that, but it’s a little different as a 5-foot-4 girl compared to a six-foot guy.”
While Anthony lives in Iowa these days, the two share a bond of being soccer siblings.
“We’re pretty close, and when he’s home we tend to go out and shoot the ball at (Wheaton Warrenville) South or even go for a lot of bike rides,” she said. “My sister is not as active. I was able to watch (Anthony) throughout most of his college games. I loved watching him play.”
Since she’s the baby of the family and was set to wrap up her playing career this spring, that missed opportunity is not only stinging her, her teammates and millions of young women like her around the country, but especially those parents who were excited to see their daughter play one last time.
“My parents have been pretty distraught,” she said. “I think we’re all going through some withdrawals.”
It’s been a big year already in the Berardi household with Sarah graduating from high school, Anthony getting his degree from Loras College and her sister graduating from DePaul law school. Rather than have a big graduation party, the entire family was set to go to Italy, where both parents are originally from, but they’ve postponed the trip until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re 100 percent Italian and both my parents are from Mola di Bari and my grandparents from both sides are from there,” she said. “We were all supposed to go this August but that isn’t going to happen so we’re going to try to get next June instead.”
With so much cancellation and postponement in her life, Berardi remains hopeful that her fall plans do not change. If all goes well, Berardi will be in Champaign at the University of Illinois this fall studying health sciences. Her soccer days may not be over yet either as she said she’s debating whether to try out of the university’s club soccer team or to play intramurals. Athletes like Berardi savor the challenge the game of soccer provides so she will need to find an outlet to compete.
“I’m going to miss the competitiveness in general,” she said. “The feeling that you have prepared for a game and that feeling you get when you win a really hard game. It’s always a great feeling when you play the whole game. And I’m going to miss the fitness aspect. It keeps me in such good shape. Working out and stuff is not the same as playing an 80-minute game.”
Some friendships will become distanced, and new ones will be made, but replacing the relationship with a teammate, working toward a common goal, is hard to duplicate elsewhere. Berardi recognizes that.
“The friendships and the whole team environment are going to be missed,” she said. “The pre-game meetings always used to pump us up. I’ve missed them a ton this year. Even the nerve-wracking feeling of going into an important game, you have your teammates there on the same page and you all try to come together because we want the same thing. There was always going to be something to miss, which is sad, especially since there is no closure.”
Wheaton Warrenville South had a virtual team awards night May 27, and Hauenstein planned to honor Berardi.
“We hung out a lot my freshman year and took a lot of rides in the downtown area, just driving around and talking,” Hauenstein said. “We got really close, and we trust each other so much. She is so funny, but you have to get to know her. We see eye to eye on a lot of things, and I’m doing my senior speech on her. I’m definitely going to miss her. She’s one of those people who I’m always excited to see. Like I wrote in my speech, she’s one of the people I could spend hours with and not get annoyed with.”
for service despite missed season
By Chris Walker
Sara Berardi wanted the villain she had just battled for 80 minutes to stare right back at her, clueless to what was about to unfold.
The Wheaton Warrenville South senior missed out on a lot of experiences during her final soccer season with the Tigers, including handing out sportsmanship awards to players on the opposing team after matches.
“It’s pretty cool,” she said. “They (opposing team players) look at us like we’re nuts. You definitely get some weird looks.”
The unique post-game sportsman award also has quite a distinct story to how it got started. Tigers coach Guy Callipari recalled coming across a box of pins in the athletics office years ago that he believed were an incentive of the DuPage Valley Conference to bring sportsmanship to the forefront, although no other sports program at Wheaton Warrenville South was using the pins nor were any other DVC teams. With an entire box of pins sitting unused, Callipari began handing one out after each match, regardless if the Tigers won or lost.
“The captains take the pin and walk over to the other group (team) which is usually having a final thought,” he said. “Usually they’ll step aside, and after years now of doing it, teams know it would happen. The captains will say a few words – we really respected the way you played the game and how you represented yourself and team - and everybody else will do a two-clap salute.”
While recognizing an opponent, the Tigers often eased the pain of tough losses by turning the attention away from them.
“What’s been good about it, is it’s really good on your end to make other people feel good, and it really took the sting out of losses pretty quickly,” he said. “Our girls were able to realize that there is much more to the game than the game itself and can walk out of here with their heads head high. Tomorrow will be here soon, and we’ll be fine.”
Eventually the bottom of the box of pins became bare and Callipari had to have special sportsmanship pins manufactured.
“This is something they can put on a shelf, it’s much bigger, and they can hold onto it,” he said. “It’s kind of a major feat on our part in trying to send that message, and it’s just worked nicely for us.”
And it’s one of the special responsibilities that the Tigers program bestows upon its captains, including Berardi.
“They wear the band to represent on the field with a voice,” he said. “They’re engaged in a lot of preseason stuff, and they look forward to not just the coin toss, but the awarding of the pin.”
Unfortunately for Berardi and fellow senior captains Abby Becker and Cami Terkildsen, the pins went unpinned this season.
Every year teams face different challenges, and we’d know by now how things would’ve played out for the Tigers. At this late juncture in the season, we’d know how teams had done by now. But by rewinding back a few months, Berardi was one of many girls fighting for an opportunity for playing time.
The Tigers only had a couple starters returning and an influx of players looking to fill the void created after 11 kids graduated in 2019 and combined for nearly four decades of high school soccer experience. No one knows how things would’ve played out for the Tigers, and no one knows really who would’ve played, where they’d play or how often.
“I don’t know if I was playing defense this year,” Berardi said. “In tryouts, I was put at midfield so I didn’t know if he was moving me to midfield. Not knowing the starting lineup, I didn’t know where he expected to play me. I was playing outside defender on club so I was hoping to continue doing that. I started for club so I was hoping to start at high school but never got to the point to decide.”
Callipari believed Berardi would’ve found her on-field role on the backline.
“She comes from a soccer family, from the parental to the brother so she’s been around the game a long time,” he said. “I was hoping she would step in at the left back position and give me some freedom to bring Becca (Hauenstein) up a little higher into the midfield, playing box-to-box, and we’d have to find an answer since that majority had graduated.”
Hauenstein was looking forward to playing with Berardi for a couple big reasons. The two have become close friends, yet haven’t had the time to really play much together. That was expected to change this spring, and Hauenstein was looking forward to more of an on-field connection as well as Berardi’s relaxing presence.
“She’s super calm and super confident with the ball,” Hauenstein said. “I feel confident when she has the ball, and she’s also aggressive with what she does. I’ve seen her go in for the tackle and all of a sudden the other girl is nowhere near her, and she has the ball.
“She can be aggressive for sure. We’d switch positions, where she would come in and vice versa, and do a good job covering for me, and this year I was hoping to be able to play outside forward or forward and make more connections. I was a looking forward to her calming presence. When she has the ball, you’re not worried she’s going to lose it. It’s what she’s going to do with it.”
Berardi appeared ready to rock her role.
“By all means she had the foundation of doing well and holding her own there,” Callipari said. “Her mental fortitude, she’s calm on the ball. She is a good athlete. I would not have seen her utilizing that position to get too much into the fray offensively. She would’ve been more of a stay at home, with the backline new.”
Fellow senior Meredith Follett has played with Berardi since the two were in the sixth grade and since the two have been stellar backline players, they’re often playing side by side.
“Sara is such a solid player, and she’s usually next to me because I was a center back and she was outside back,” Follett said. “She was always there for me, always the first to step, and a strong step, and I could always count on her to make a lot of major plays and sometimes it’s hit or miss with an outside back so it’s been nice to have her on my side with the confidence to step up and play.”
Sadly, Follett and Berardi weren’t going to play together this year pandemic or not. A knee injury ended Follett’s senior season before it even started. Berardi suffered along with the rest with postponements and continual pushbacks before the finality of ‘there isn’t going to be a season’ hit home.
“Even if I have a bad game, I feel confident knowing she’s there to support me so I’m going to miss playing with her,” Follett said. “She’s a calming presence on the field and always kept the energy going. She always had a good attitude while focusing on the game and ignoring the negatives.”
Without a doubt, it’s been a frustrating and disappointing situation this spring for millions of kids. Luckily for Follett and others who are close to Berardi, they have a friend who can keep them smiling even when times are tough like they have been this spring.
“Even with all this going down she has had a comedic presence and always brings a smile to your face,” Follett said. “I remember for club we had a lot of practice with fitness, and they’d be especially hard, but she’d always be there to bring a smile to your face, cracking a joke. She’s been by my side since sixth grade. She’s such a great friend to have.”
Even the prized experience of being a captain and a leader was cut short due to the coronavirus.
“We were already handling the team pretty well before the season got cut off,” Berardi said. “We were planning team bonding weekends and had one scheduled for the weekend of the week that everything got shutdown. We had to cancel a good amount of what we had planned for the season.”
Becker, Berardi and and Terkildsen had planned a surprise night at Dave and Buster’s for team activities.
“It’s usually a highlight of the year, and we usually keep it a secret until the day of and then we do tell them,” Berardi said. “Then we were hoping to do it later instead, after spring break once we went back to school, but that didn’t happen. Then we started to make Zoom calls but didn’t get any closure with the team bonding.”
As successful as Berardi wanted the Tigers to be on the field, she wanted to succeed in leading them the right away in a fun, enjoyable environment.
“I think would’ve taken the role pretty well since I’m pretty close with the underclassmen, and I think they respect me as a player and a person,” she said. “I think with Cami (Terkildsen) and Abby (Becker) all the players would’ve respected us. We already were handling the team pretty well before season cut off, planning team bonding weekends.”
Although she was still in elementary school when her brother Anthony was a senior at Wheaton Warrenville South, she remembers his senior year, including his Senior Night, so she’s always had an idea of what her final go round could be like. But no one could’ve predicted it to unfold like it did.
“My dad used to take stats and stuff (for her brother’s games), and he didn’t have to drag me to the games with him,” she said. “He was a captain so I strived to be a captain and wanted it even more as time went on.
“They were pretty bad his senior year (6-13-2 in 2015), but he enjoyed it so much. I remember his Senior Night, and I always waited for it. Watching the teammates with the flowers, and senior pins on parents. It stinks that I didn’t get to do it.”
Anthony Berardi was a two-time all-DuPage Valley Conference selection and a three-year player who finished up at Loras College. Their father played at Northern Illinois University. Certainly, this wonderful game is something the Berardis are passionate about and Sara was really looking forward to seeing what she could do in her swan song for the Tigers.
“(Anthony) was a sweeper throughout college so we never played the same position, but he knew how to hold his own,” she said. “I try to be like that, but it’s a little different as a 5-foot-4 girl compared to a six-foot guy.”
While Anthony lives in Iowa these days, the two share a bond of being soccer siblings.
“We’re pretty close, and when he’s home we tend to go out and shoot the ball at (Wheaton Warrenville) South or even go for a lot of bike rides,” she said. “My sister is not as active. I was able to watch (Anthony) throughout most of his college games. I loved watching him play.”
Since she’s the baby of the family and was set to wrap up her playing career this spring, that missed opportunity is not only stinging her, her teammates and millions of young women like her around the country, but especially those parents who were excited to see their daughter play one last time.
“My parents have been pretty distraught,” she said. “I think we’re all going through some withdrawals.”
It’s been a big year already in the Berardi household with Sarah graduating from high school, Anthony getting his degree from Loras College and her sister graduating from DePaul law school. Rather than have a big graduation party, the entire family was set to go to Italy, where both parents are originally from, but they’ve postponed the trip until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re 100 percent Italian and both my parents are from Mola di Bari and my grandparents from both sides are from there,” she said. “We were all supposed to go this August but that isn’t going to happen so we’re going to try to get next June instead.”
With so much cancellation and postponement in her life, Berardi remains hopeful that her fall plans do not change. If all goes well, Berardi will be in Champaign at the University of Illinois this fall studying health sciences. Her soccer days may not be over yet either as she said she’s debating whether to try out of the university’s club soccer team or to play intramurals. Athletes like Berardi savor the challenge the game of soccer provides so she will need to find an outlet to compete.
“I’m going to miss the competitiveness in general,” she said. “The feeling that you have prepared for a game and that feeling you get when you win a really hard game. It’s always a great feeling when you play the whole game. And I’m going to miss the fitness aspect. It keeps me in such good shape. Working out and stuff is not the same as playing an 80-minute game.”
Some friendships will become distanced, and new ones will be made, but replacing the relationship with a teammate, working toward a common goal, is hard to duplicate elsewhere. Berardi recognizes that.
“The friendships and the whole team environment are going to be missed,” she said. “The pre-game meetings always used to pump us up. I’ve missed them a ton this year. Even the nerve-wracking feeling of going into an important game, you have your teammates there on the same page and you all try to come together because we want the same thing. There was always going to be something to miss, which is sad, especially since there is no closure.”
Wheaton Warrenville South had a virtual team awards night May 27, and Hauenstein planned to honor Berardi.
“We hung out a lot my freshman year and took a lot of rides in the downtown area, just driving around and talking,” Hauenstein said. “We got really close, and we trust each other so much. She is so funny, but you have to get to know her. We see eye to eye on a lot of things, and I’m doing my senior speech on her. I’m definitely going to miss her. She’s one of those people who I’m always excited to see. Like I wrote in my speech, she’s one of the people I could spend hours with and not get annoyed with.”