Sheahon Zenger hired Brock Spack as Illinois State's head football coach in 2009. (Photo courtesy GoRedbirds.com)
By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – Former Illinois State and current Kansas University athletic director Sheahon Zenger will be the first to admit he isn’t surprised the Redbirds are playing for the FCS national championship against North Dakota State at noon Saturday in Frisco, Texas.
“Not one bit,” said Zenger. “From Day 1 when I was hired I just believed this institution had all the capabilities of being a dominant football program. Because I believed if you scratch below the surface of Blooming-Normal and its very core, it’s a football town on Friday night. I really thought it could become a football town on Saturdays as well.”
Zenger admits there were a number of naysayers, who wondered what he was doing advocating football so strongly at ISU after a majority of years of mediocrity.
PODCAST: Listen to Bryan Bloodworth's interview with Zenger on WJBC.
“Yet I looked around the (Missouri Valley Conference) and I looked at what other places were doing,” he added. “Then I looked at what I thought were the seven intangibles at Illinois State and that had to do with location, name brand, student population, the population of Bloomington-Normal, the leadership, the academic leadership and the community leadership.
“It just always felt like to me a Big 10 school that wasn’t in the Big 10. I know people thought that was crazy, but I just always believed that the potential has always been here and given the opportunity it would bloom.”
When Zenger went looking for a new head coach six years ago, he knew he found his guy the first time he interviewed Brock Spack at the Beef House in Covington, Ind.
“From the first time I met Brock Spack, I knew he could bring the nuts and bolts of football to ISU and just do it in a quiet, unassuming, hard-nosed fashion and he has,” Zenger continued.
Zenger added that Spack brought the qualities he was looking for in a head coach.
“We had a list of seven criteria that being with we were primarily looking for someone who was a strong defensive coordinator who had been a part of a spread offense system, meaning he could develop a strong defense while going against a spread offense each and every day,” Zenger continued.
“Up to that point, the leader in the clubhouse in that was Purdue with Joe Tiller (where Spack was the defensive coordinator). Brock jumped off the page in that regard. But he also fit the other criteria such as having lived in or being a part of Illinois. Well, he was from Rockford.
“He had recruited this state forever, even when he was at Wyoming. We wanted to have a stronger foothold in the state, particularly Chicago, and you’ve seen all this come to fruition.“And he’s just old school. What you see is what you get.”
Spack will be the first to admit the $25 million renovation of Hancock Stadium has been a boon to his program and Zenger was mainly responsible for getting the ball rolling on the “Redbird Renaissance” program that was largely responsible for the funding the effort.
“I was very fortunate when I got here that the table was set with (then ISU president) Al Bowman’s leadership and what he wanted to do with this institution,” said Zenger, “and with the staff of high quality people who helped so do the things we were able to do. The synergy just all hit at the right time. It was a diamond in the rough that was ready to be opened up and expended on.”
And who was responsible for making that happen?
“Al Bowman,” said Zenger without hesitation, “His leadership and ability to let his generals do their work and do it well, to dream, to have a vision and to bring in the external folks who cared about this institution.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at lefty@wjbc.com.
