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| Brad Spencer's stomping grounds have been in Naperville, Illinois, and North Central's campus for basically his entire life. Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com |
By Joe Sager
D3sports.com
North Central has built its program with a family approach.
And, the Cardinals have tried to keep their flock together as much as possible with the “new old guy” leading the way.
Brad Spencer is in his first year as North Central’s head coach, but he’s spent his entire professional and personal life around the program.
“Every program likes to say they are a family,” Spencer said. “North Central really is.”
Born and raised in Naperville, Ill., just five minutes from North Central’s campus, Spencer got to spend plenty of time around Cardinals athletic programs throughout the years as his father, Rick, worked in administration. He just retired after a 41-year career there.
“My dad started working at North Central in 1981 and I was born a month later,” Spencer said. “My brother, Tyke, and I grew up as best friends.
“It was a great life. My mom would bring us over and drop us off at a practice. When my dad was done working, he’d take us home. We knew all the routines and how practices went and we’d stay on the side, out of the way. We’d beat each other up playing football in the end zone while practice was going on.
“Football, basketball and baseball – we’d be there at practices and games,” he continued. “Coach Mathey, the current baseball coach here, I was his batboy. I don’t know what that says about either one of our ages.”
Spencer stayed close to the program throughout his high school years, too. After graduating from Naperville Central High School, where he won a football state title in 1999, he went to North Central and played football. When he graduated in 2004, the wide receiver had program records for receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns. Immediately, he jumped into coaching with the Cardinals as the team’s wide receivers/tight ends coach, where he got a chance to coach Tyke as well.
“I grew up loving the school and having an affinity toward it. Being a student-athlete here and all the relationships and friendships I had, I didn’t want to go anywhere else,” he said. “John Thorne hired me in 2004 and I didn’t have to go the GA route and do the whole thing going around the country working at different programs,” he said. “He hired full-time right away. He was probably sick of me being around the office watching film and bugging him constantly. He thought he might as well pay me.”
Little did Spencer know, it was the start of the path toward taking over the program.
“Right then when I was hired, my only ambition was to be best receivers coach I could be,” he said.
He was promoted to assistant head coach and offensive coordinator before the 2015 season. He took over as head coach when Jeff Thorne, who succeeded his father as head coach in 2015, left to become offensive coordinator at Western Michigan after last season.
“Coaches at the collegiate level, that’s typically a dream job – to come back and be the head coach at their alma mater,” Spencer said. “I had just been around a while, stayed patient and helped build the program and the opportunity came up. I don’t know that many folks in the country that could be as lucky to have that opportunity.”
Spencer didn’t need many professional references. Athletic director Jim Miller babysat both he and his brother when they were younger.
“Becoming head coach here was never something I thought I must achieve,” Spencer said. “After getting some other opportunities to go elsewhere, it became a thought. I had opportunities to be an offensive coordinator and play caller as well as head coach at other places, but I just felt the Lord wanted me to be here and I was in the right place and doing his work. I was happy. It just so happened that saying no to other opportunities landed me the head coaching job here. Sure, it took 19 years. Some people want to be a head coach after five years of coaching. I just felt like God had me in the right place.
“The joy I get out of this is the relationships I have with the players and coaches and helping young men change and find their futures,” he continued. “That’s the ‘why.’ If you’re doing that, then you are not feeling like you have to be chasing down some other title. If you can live with gratitude in your heart and be thankful for every day and what you’re doing, that’s the ultimate.”
When Spencer was hired, he wanted to maintain the Cardinals’ high level of play. They won the 2019 national championship, and the next season, lost to Mary Hardin-Baylor in the 2021 Stagg Bowl. They are back again and take on Mount Union on Saturday for this year’s championship.
“A lot of times, a first-year head coach is going to a program that’s struggling and you have to blow everything up and fire coaches and hire coaches and change the infrastructure,” he said. “I didn’t have to do any of it. I just got to go hire a couple more coaches to make ourselves even better.
“My message to the guys when I got hired was, ‘Let’s go to work and we’ll see you tomorrow morning at workouts.’ Nothing changed,” he continued. “We’ve changed some little things here and there if we, as a staff, decided to do something a little different. Our overall philosophy and mission and what we’re trying to do accomplish day to day has not changed and will not change as long as I am here.”
And that’s to remain a national power like Mount Union, Mary Hardin-Baylor and UW-Whitewater.
“That has to be the goal,” Spencer said. “Down the road, we want people to look at us in the same way they look at those programs. We know there’s still work to be done and we accept it. The long-term goal is to try to get to that level.”
In order to achieve it, Spencer wants to ensure consistency within the program. That’s why the coaching staff is filled with North Central alums. Of the 20 coaches on staff, 11 played for the Cardinals. Spencer played with current offensive coordinator Eric Stuedemann for one season and coached him for three more. Spencer personally recruited assistants Shane Dierking, Dylan Warden, Emonte Logan and Andrew Kamienski as players as well.
“People ask me why we have so many alums here. First of all, these folks love North Central and the people here and the experiences they have had,” he said. “I do think it brings a certain amount of loyalty. In the world – and certainly in athletics, as someone who has to hire and manage people – loyalty is a big thing. If you know somebody’s heart and you can trust them to implement the things you’re asking of them and treat the players how you want them to be treated – that’s the key.
“We can teach and coach our schemes and our plans and how we break down opponents all we want. Trying to teach their hearts is a lot harder. That’s what I look for when I am hiring or coaching. I want people to be around for the right reasons and have the right type of drive to be excellent and elite in all aspects of life.
“Part of my job is to protect the culture here that John Thorne and Jeff Thorne have built.”
Spencer is thrilled to maintain that legacy as well as his family’s. Rick Spencer played and coached at Augustana before coming to North Central. He helped recruit some of the Vikings’ first classes that won four straight national titles (1983-86). Rick’s brother, Mike, played at Wake Forest. Mike and Rick’s father, Wes, was head coach at Naperville Community High School from 1952 to 1969 and was inducted into the Illinois State Coaches Hall of Fame.
An annual high school rivalry game between Naperville Central and Naperville North is called the Wes Spencer Crosstown Classic. It has been held at North Central’s Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium since 2001.
“I named my first son after my grandfather,” Brad Spencer said. “Last Christmas, my dad gave me one of his playbooks. I have that in my desk today. Some of the guys get a kick out of it when I show them. Some of the ideologies and thought processes are still similar, in terms of blocking and tackling, spreading the field horizontally and vertically. The schemes are so different, but the ideals are not.”
Just like at North Central.