West tabs Alleman grad as grid coach

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By Dearrel Bates | Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:18 AM CDT | () comments

With a little more than two weeks before the start of its football camp, Davenport West finally has named a new head coach.

The hiring of Scott Schroeder was approved Monday at a Davenport school board meeting. He replaces Randy Schrader, West’s athletic director, who also held the football coaching job until resigning last fall at midseason, although he coached the team for the remainder of the 2005 campaign.

The naming of the 37-year-old Schroeder, a former Rock Island Alleman High School athlete who has coached at the high school and collegiate levels across the nation, was delayed for several months while the state processed his teaching and coaching certification from Florida.

“It’s been a long wait because of the bureaucracy involved, but I’m glad it’s all over now,” Schroeder said Tuesday. “I’ve been allowed to meet the players and watch them in the weight room, plus meet the coaches on our staff, get to know them and start planning for the season.”

West wound up 4-5 in 2005 in Schrader’s third year as head coach after 1-8 and 2-7 seasons. A former North Scott head coach, he became Davenport Public Schools’ athletic director before returning to coaching football after Paul Flynn resigned at West in 2003. Schrader then became the Falcons’ athletic director.

“Even though I was coaching in a lot of different states, I kept up what was going on in the Quad-Cities, especially in athletics, through the Quad-City Times,” Schroeder said.

“I guess I’ve always had the idea of perhaps one day returning to the Quad-Cities to coach because this area was always such a big part of me when I was growing up. When I found out about the West job being open, I contacted Randy (Schrader) because it seemed like it might be a good fit for me.”

Schroeder, a 1986 Alleman graduate, was a football and

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baseball athlete in high school. A versatile player who was a linebacker, defensive back and wide receiver for the Pioneers, he helped coach Mike Tracey’s team reach the playoffs during his junior and senior seasons.

Following high school, Schroeder attended the University of Iowa as a student, with the idea of eventually coaching.

At a football coaching clinic, he met the coach from fabled Mater Dei High School in California. He hooked on with the school’s staff as a defensive backs assistant and was part of the 1994 mythical high school national championship team as selected by USA Today.

After spending three years there, Schroeder moved on to assistant coaching jobs at Southern Illinois University for one year in 1996, Hutchinson (Kan.) Junior College for two years, one year at the University of Arizona and two years at Eastern Michigan.

His first head coaching job was at a high school in Holland, Mich., for two years before going to a high school in Pembroke Pines, Fla., near Miami as the offensive coordinator. After coaching all around the country, Schroeder figured it was time to settle down in the Q-C with his wife, Heather, (a Kansas native) and their four children.

“My dad (Richard Schroeder) and mom (Sharyn Jackson) live in Rock Island, and I still have plenty of other relatives here, so it’s like I’m coming home,” he said.

Schroeder, who will teach social studies at West, said his coaching philosophy leans a great deal on what he learned while playing for Tracey.

“I’ve called the offensive plays and believe in running the football first,” he said. “I want our teams to be hard-nosed and play hard.

“I know coach Schrader has built the base for being successful during his three years at West, like taking steps with the weight room and work ethic for the players. We want to build on that, and I’m also a big believer in having our athletes playing other sports after the football season.”

Dearrel Bates can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or dbates@qctimes.com.