February 2017 - 16 W e s t S i d e S t o r y
Schuckman steps down as Bishop Carroll football coach
For the past 22 seasons on this field, Alan Schuckman has led the Bishop Carroll Catholic High School football team. He also was a player for the Golden Eagles. Schuckman announced in January that he is stepping away for the sidelines.
End of an era During Alan Schuckman’s 22 years as head football coach at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School, the Eagles transformed from an average football program to one of the best in all of Kansas. Schuckman’s time as the Eagles’ head coach came to an end in January when he announced at the team’s postseason banquet that he is stepping down. Schuckman said that the decision to step down was not a rash one. It was partly was motivated by the deaths of a pair of former assistant coaches in 2015. “Over the past several years, I felt the Lord was calling me in a different direction,” Schuckman said. “With the deaths of Chris Norgren and Roger Robben, in 2015, I looked at my life and started to re-prioritize what was important in my life. I knew I needed to be a better husband to my wife, Kelley, and four daughters – Kelsi, Kylie, Kassie and Khloe. “My four daughters will be in four different cities next year. I talk family, (but) sometimes my football family trumps what I am most proud of – my immediate family.” Schuckman’s 22 years as Bishop Carroll’s head
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coach began in 1995 and featured State championships in 2012 and 2014, 11 Greater Wichita Athletic League titles and 193 victories – an average of almost nine wins per season. The Eagles have not had a losing season since 1995, Schuckman’s first year. One of Schuckman’s players, Blake Bell, currently plays in the National Football League for the San Francisco 49ers. “It has been an awesome 22-year run,” Schuckman said. “As a coach, you never have time to sit back and reflect on the past season, because you are always working on the next thing. Every year was very calculated, for the past 22 years.” Each of Schuckman’s years as coach at Bishop Carroll began with football season, which he described as a seven-day-a-week grind for four months. The postseason banquet followed as a celebration of the past season, often with more than 400 attendees.
The rest of Schuckman’s school year was filled with senior college placement, winter offseason weights and conditioning, clinics, and scheduling of summer team camps and 7-on-7. During the summer, Schuckman spent his time running those football camps, running Carroll’s weights and conditioning program, and coaching at clinics around the local area. “Somewhere in there, I tried to meet with as many players as possible, one-on-one, to discuss setting goals and how to develop a plan for them to meet those goals they have set for themselves,” Schuckman said. “Goals were set to develop the whole person, which included spiritually, academically, socially and athletically.” And the thing that stood out the most from the last 22 years? “I do know it won’t be what most people think it was,” Schuckman said. “It will be the great relationships I have built with my coaches, players and families.” Schuckman said that many of his best friendships have been formed over the last 22 years.