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If you look at Division III football schedules across the country, it is easy to miss one of the biggest oddities of the 2025 season. I would have missed it if I had not surfed D3FB.com (the comprehensive resource for Division III football) during lunch one day. Their site made a brief mention of Lake Forest and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps playing in the first Division III football game in the state of Arizona. Neither school is in Arizona, and the home team, Lake Forest, is over 2,000 miles away from the stadium of this game.
There is so much that would prevent this game from happening, but it is the culmination of an over 15-year process for Lake Forest.
"One of the things I truly believe is we are Arizona's Division III football program," Lake Forest Head Coach and Associate Head Coach Jim Catanzaro told me during our interview.
How could a school in Chicago make this claim?
Ultimately, Catanzaro and his staff gradually met the needs of a group of athletes left out of the local college football scene. Catanzaro recalled a phone call with a friend from Phoenix where he asked where the football players who do not play Division I football go to continue their careers. His friend said, "They don't. They don't play football."
From there, Catanzaro began using his ties to the area as a junior college recruiter at another program to construct the pipeline from Arizona to Lake Forest.
The pipeline grew after Lake Forest recruited Brock Ungvarsky from the Phoenix area in 2008. Ungvarsky's dad, a former Arizona State player, began sending information on local players to Catanzaro. Despite playing at Arizona State, the feeling of Division III representing everything good about college football drew Ungvarsky to help. Ungvarsky's connections worked. Lake Forest signed eight players from the state of Arizona and never looked back. In 2024, Lake Forest had 47 players from the state of Arizona. On top of the Arizona takeover of Lake Forest's roster, the school hosted a high school camp, invited around 50-60 other schools, and saw over 600 prospects participate. Catanzaro summarizes Lake Forest's influence perfectly.
"We're taking their greatest export and taking it to Chicago to play football."
A game in Arizona had been in the works for eight years. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lake Forest engaged in discussions with Whittier. Unfortunately, talks fell through after the pandemic and when Whittier shut down its program in 2022. Luckily, Catanzaro used his connection with Kyle Sweeney to convince Claremont-Mudd-Scripps to play in Arizona. Catanzaro previously coached Team USA with Sweeney in the mid-2000s and used the appeal of a bus trip for a road game, a luxury not offered by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps' other non-conference road games.
Naturally, moving a home game nearly 1800 miles is a significant financial undertaking. Luckily, Catanzaro says alums and family contributions helped reduce the financial burden. Additionally, the Chandler Unified School District will help with equipment and facilities.
"They're not charging us to use the field. They're not charging us to use some of the other things there. We're going to have places to practice when we go down there because we're going to have to do some heat acclimatization," Catanzaro states. Athletic directors and staff members have also pitched in to offer support with water coolers to reduce the load on Lake Forest's equipment team. It seems it takes a village to make a Division III neutral site game happen. Chandler, Arizona is up for the task.
The Chandler Unified School District will also benefit from the Lake Forest-Claremont-Mudd-Scripps game. Catanzaro states, "We're actually trying to use it for them as a showcase as well. One school's going to send the anthem singer. One school's going to send the color guard. Another's going to send their band, dance team, or cheerleaders, just so they can showcase their talents and be a part of the game, have them exposed to small colleges and small college football as well."
While transcontinental conferences have ruined the allure of intersectional games, the novelty of Lake Forest and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps' game in Arizona could have national implications. Catanzaro emphasized the benefit of a potential win over a playoff-caliber team outside of their ranking for the Division III NPI rankings should the Foresters have to vie for an at-large bid.
Despite the long distance, Lake Forest may not have any issues with attendance. Catanzaro noted that this could be the only time several players' parents will get to see them play in person during their college careers. He even shared a story of one parent who asked for 112 tickets.
Over one hundred years ago, millions of young men heeded Horace Greeley's famous call "Go West, young man" for opportunity and riches. Jim Catanzaro heard his own call to go west to build his program with talent from Arizona. Lake Forest's "home" game in Chandler, Arizona is a culmination of a process that gave opportunity to several players overlooked by the region's programs.