Chris Galloway was a 15-year-old sophomore at Yorkville High School when he met his best friend.
Phil LoChirco was a year younger than Galloway — and, at the time, considerably smaller.
“I just remember in the hallways being like ‘you’ve got to come to the weight room, because you’re a little too small to play varsity football,’” Galloway said. “And he was like, ‘Oh, whatever, Galloway.’”
As it turned out, LoChirco didn’t stay small for long.
By junior year, he was 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds. He made varsity in time for Galloway’s senior year in 2017, giving them their lone season together as varsity linebackers.
When Galloway looks back on that season, one in which the Foxes struggled to a 2-7 record, there isn’t a favorite play that comes to mind.
Instead, it’s a moment between plays during a Week 5 loss to Morris.
“I was cramping like a little baby, and I couldn’t get off the ground,” Galloway said. “He ran over from the other side of the field and was the one that came to pick me up.”
One photograph captured that seemingly simple gesture between teammates. But Galloway, now an assistant coach for the Foxes, said it captured something much deeper.
“I’ve always said that picture embodies who he was as a man,” Galloway said. “The fact that no matter what the situation was or where he was, he was always going to be the one that ran over to help you.”
Which made the news of LoChirco’s untimely death hard to stomach.
LoChirco, along with his former college teammate Jalen Shaffer, drowned June 13 in Lake Michigan while visiting Port Sheldon Township, Michigan. He was 24 years old.
“It just hits you like a punch in the stomach,” Yorkville coach Dan McGuire said. “Obviously, it’s a tremendous loss. But then you think about people like Chris and other kids — it’s such a ripple effect. I think from my vantage point, you see how it can just impact so many people with a kid like Phil that has touched so many lives…”
‘They bought into him’
After graduating from Yorkville in 2019, LoChirco continued his playing career at nearby Wheaton College.
Even while playing college ball, he found his way back to his alma mater.
LoChirco, along with Galloway, spent many summers working with Yorkville athletes in the weight room. His transition from player to mentor, McGuire said, was seamless.
Can’t thank Chris and Phil enough for coming back to help our program this summer. Great role models for our team. I am lucky to have coached them and call them friends! pic.twitter.com/7n7tI4QOxl
— Dan McGuire (@CoachDanMcGuire) July 31, 2020
“He was just as good working with kids as an adult as he was as a player,” McGuire said.
McGuire had hoped to bring LoChirco onto his coaching staff, but the dots never connected — a missed opportunity that still sticks with the coaching veteran of nearly two decades.
“I’d say that’s probably my biggest regret,” McGuire said. “You could tell he wanted to coach, so I never could get him on our staff, for whatever reason. But I thought he would be a great coach, and he was a great coach.”
LoChirco took his first official step into the coaching world in 2023, when he was hired at Plano to serve as the junior varsity defensive coordinator.
It didn’t take long for Kyle Vestal, the Reapers’ JV head coach that season, to notice the “ball of energy” he had working under him.
“He was a young kid that was learning how to coach, but he was super passionate, extremely passionate,” Vestal said. “And the kids fed off his energy. They bought into him, everything he said and believed in. They knew he was genuine.”
Come LoChirco’s second season in 2024, his defense had picked up steam. The Reapers went 5-4 and allowed just nine points per game while recording eight sacks, seven fumble recoveries and 11 interceptions.
But if a player scored a touchdown on defense, LoChirco rewarded them handsomely with a homemade creation.
“He would make a Chirc sub for any of the guys, and I remember he brought it in during the kids’ lunch time, because he was subbing with us at school,” said Michael Moderhack, who took over for Vestal as Plano’s JV coach in 2024. “He delivered it. It was great. He was awesome.”
LoChirco left Plano after the 2024 season, later taking an assistant role at Wheaton Academy, a private Christian school in West Chicago.
“We were blessed to be able to share the field with him and coach next to him,” Moderhack said. “And these kids were blessed to have been coached by him.”
‘You will restore me’
Galloway and McGuire don’t agree on which of the two coaches conceived the idea of honoring LoChirco with a helmet sticker.
Nonetheless, the Foxes are wearing one this season.
Each player’s helmet bears a black-and-red sticker with LoChirco’s name, the No. 51 he wore at Yorkville and the words, “You will restore me.”
The sticker was designed by LoChirco’s family, including parents Philip and Kenia, wife Emily and siblings Isabella and Giovan.
“Seeing it on our kids’ helmets, for me, means the world to me,” Galloway said. “I know it means the world to the family, and I think it says something to our players, too. He served our kids for years, so a lot of our kids know him or have met him before, and it just gives us that reminder that tomorrow’s not promised, so what you do today is what matters.”
Yorkville honored LoChirco before its season opener on Aug. 21, with his parents and wife serving as guest captains. The Foxes went on to beat Crete-Monee 25-15.
“The pictures are the best, because you see his parents are smiling, his family is smiling,” Galloway said. “Mrs. LoChirco gave me a hug and said, ‘We won the game for Phil,’ and even our players on the sideline were saying, ‘we’ve got to win the game for Phil.’”
The late LoChirco, McGuire muses, may have even helped his old coach one more time that night.
‘He saved me on a bad call’
As other games around the area were being cancelled or postponed due to bad weather, Yorkville got its game in.
Then came a pivotal moment.
Facing third-and-2 with 11:52 left in the fourth quarter and Yorkville leading 22-15, McGuire thought he’d called a bad play.
Just then, the game was stopped for a lightning delay. The roughly 30-minute pause gave the Foxes time to regroup and draw up a better play.
We won the game for Phil.
— Kenia LoChirco
“With my luck, it usually happens after a bad play, and you’re like ‘I wish that would have happened before the play,’” McGuire said.
When the teams returned to the field, there was neither rain nor thunder, and the Foxes converted the third down and rode that momentum to victory.
“You just think about what are the odds of that happening?” McGuire said. “Whatever you believe in, it’s just crazy to think how things like that will work out … It’s just crazy how we got the game in, first of all, and then that he saved me on a bad call.”
Because, in the end, that’s who Phil LoChirco always was.
Beneath his larger-than-life physique and the goofy, quirky personality that made him beloved by many, Phil had a servant’s heart.
“There’s not a single person that Phil met that would say he didn’t try to serve them to the best of his ability,” Galloway said. “He always used to say that he lived a life on a mission to have a sacrificial servant love towards every single person he meets — no matter their status, no matter who they are.”
“He was the one person in life that could oversee any wrongdoing and love you unconditionally, and I know that’s a legacy that I’ll never forget.”