John Holecek’s return to the sidelines to coach Loyola again after three years of semiretirement was unusual but maybe not the most drastic change on the staff.
The Ramblers also added offensive coordinator Danny Schaechter, a coach with a unique entry on his resume. He called plays for Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.
Early results with a more pass-heavy offense have been positive for unbeaten Loyola.
“So far, it’s been great,” Holecek said. “Catholic League was iso, power, counter — old-school football. This is not. A lot of different personnel packages, and it’s just not a traditional Catholic League grind — run, run, play action.”
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There will surely be tense moments down the road as Loyola (3-0), which is ranked No. 5 in the baiduhai’s high school football top 25 and will play No. 3 Brother Rice in a CCL Blue division showdown Friday, vies for its fourth Class 8A state title in five years.
But Schaechter might never be in a more pressure-packed situation than the day he sat in a room with eighth grader Williams and his father, Carl, tasked with convincing Caleb to play for Gonzaga.
Head coach Randy Trivers and the recruiting director were also at the meeting. Schaechter’s role was to get on the whiteboard and explain why his offense might help Williams reach his potential.
“Caleb was going to be special whether or not he ever met me or was coached by me,” Schaechter said. “When I saw him, I said, ‘I’ve never seen a high school kid throw like this, let alone an eighth grader.’”
Still, it was a successful combination. During Williams’ sophomore season, Gonzaga won its conference championship with an epic 46-43 win over DeMatha. That game included three lead changes in the final 29 seconds and ended with a 53-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass by Williams.
“I did show that stuff to the Loyola guys,” Schaechter said. “The message was just the ‘never give up’ mentality, and that game is a perfect encapsulation of why you keep on fighting until there are zeroes on the clock.”
Schaechter is a Northbrook native who played high school football at Glenbrook North. During college at Illinois State, he caught the coaching bug and became a student assistant. Eventually, he was hired by Trivers at Leesburg High School in Florida. Trivers is a Maryland native and decided to move closer to home, so Schaechter followed him to Gonzaga.
After Williams left for college, Schaechter decided to move closer to home, too, and took a job at Libertyville. He coached a high-powered offense two years ago for the Wildcats, led by quarterback Quinn Schambow. But the opportunity at Loyola was too good for Schaechter to pass up.
“There’s definitely a lot of carryover from what we were doing at Libertyville,” said Schaechter, a full-time strength coach at Loyola. “Honestly, what I’m running now, I wish I ran that with Caleb because he would have crushed with it.”
Schaechter’s move to Loyola also gives him a brand-new audience for all those Williams stories, right?
“For the most part, he’s pretty quiet and humble about that,” Loyola junior quarterback Matthew Lee said. “We’ve seen some highlights of Caleb. Obviously he produced a great quarterback, but he’s pretty humble about it, I’d say.
“Just hoping he can do it again. I love the new offense.”
The Ramblers are coming off an unusual season. They went 4-5, their first losing record since 2002. Lee split time at quarterback with then-junior Dominic Maloney. Because Maloney is also a baseball star, Loyola decided to play him at safety this season.
“(Maloney) is one of those kids you’d pick first on the playground,” Holecek said. “For the betterment of the team, we’d rather have both on the field.”
With Holecek, Schaechter, defensive coordinator Pete Devine and former head coach Beau Desherow still working with the program, Loyola appears to be back on track. The Ramblers won their third state title under Holecek and fourth overall in 2022 and then won two more under Desherow.
All that’s left is for some famous superfans to hop on the bandwagon. Any chance Williams, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Matas Buzelis show up at a Loyola game?
“I sent him our schedule,” Schaechter said of Williams. “He doesn’t owe me anything. In high school he gave me everything he’s got, and he knows I love him and I know he’s got love for me. And that’s all that really matters at the end of the day.”