Head football coach enjoys his first year coaching at the school.

“As I became a coach one of the things that it’s a blessing to me is building relationships with students here and how we build off of that too,” Rustman said. “It’s fun to interact with them.”

Rustman has been coaching for nine years and was previously coaching at Joliet West High School.

“Coaching has been awesome. I don’t have any bad memories, (only) great memories,” Rustman said. “(For example) when I was at Joliet West I had a kid that went to Harvard and kids with not so good home lives have come out successful.”

While joining a sport for some can be for fun, Rustman hopes students joining football are dedicated too.

“We’re looking for high character type of men, young men who are willing to be leaders and give back to the community. We have to work at building the culture, work ethic, being a good person, and have an integrity,” Rustman said. “If there’s a football player walking around the school, I want everyone in the school to see them in a positive way.”

Although this is Rustman’s first year working at the school, he hopes players succeed in the field.

“We try to develop kids. We’re not trying to put kids out of position to be unsuccessful,” Rustman said.

As Rustman hopes to help players become better, he hopes to become a mentor.

“I think discipline directs our lives in the way we want to go, so that’s why I try to instill discipline on our players. We hold ourselves accountable as coaches to the same expectations as our players,” Rustman said. “I’m not the yelling type coach, not a punishing type coach but somebody that is going to try to figure out why you’re doing something that way and I’m going to try to help you figure it out.”

Joining a sport can be stressful for some, but Rustman hopes the players enjoy themselves.

“We’re here to have fun and I want our athletes to know that football it’s supposed to be fun,” Rustman said. “Extracurriculars are not supposed to overtake your life because you lose the end goal on why you’re playing the sport or doing the extracurricular.”

According to Athletic Director Doug Mullaney, Rustman shows passion for his job.

“He’s going to be really good with the kids,” Mullaney said. “(During his interview) he was talking about having fun and not practicing seven days a week, so keeping them out there win or lose but having fun and building relationships with parents is very important to him, so I’m really happy with the job he’s doing.”