MEET THE GUY WHO’S GOING TO MAKE YOU CARE ABOUT CWU FOOTBALL Written by: Pete O’Cain Photos by: Alyssa Darby
In 2000, Ian Shoemaker, then 25, dropped out of a sports psychology graduate program at Western Washington University and moved to Kansas to take his first full-time coaching job. And his second. The University of St. Mary, a small school in Leavenworth had recently founded its first baseball and football teams. Shoemaker was brought in as head coach of the baseball team and as offensive coordinator of the football team. That year, they built the two programs
from the ground up. Literally. “It was kind of interesting: designing uniforms, building the stadium, recruiting the inaugural class,” he says, smiling. “I’m out there, 25 years old, not knowing what the heck I was doing and trying to figure it out on the fly.” Fourteen years later, Shoemaker, now 40, is back in Washington as Central’s new head football coach, and he has begun work on a foundation. And he knows exactly what the heck he’s doing.