Cary-Grove tabs Seaburg as next football coach
Pending District 155 board approval, sophomore coach Brad Seaburg will be the next varsity football coach at Cary-Grove, principal Jay Sargeant announced Saturday.
Seaburg, 33, replaces Bruce Kay, who stepped down in November after compiling a record of 168-68 in 22 seasons, a career highlighted by the 2009 Class 6A state championship.
Seaburg is a Marengo High School graduate. He played football at Loras College, where he was twice named academic all-conference. The social studies teacher has been Cary-Grove's sophomore football coach since arriving at the school 10 years ago, a span during which his teams went 61-9-2 (. 847).
“I'm very excited,” Seaburg said Saturday. “I mean, what's there not to be excited about? It's a great job.”
The new coach said Trojans fans and will see little change as far as schemes.
“My hope is that to the spectator we look pretty similar, and I hope the outcome is similar, too,” said Seaburg, an offensive coach. “I see us being an option football team and running a 3-3 defense and playing very similar styles of offense and defense, concentrating on execution and discipline.”
Seaburg was given the good news late this week after final interviews took place during exams. Sargeant, who made the final decision after considering the recommendation of a committee, said he is confident in Seaburg's ability to take the reins of the Fox Valley Conference's most successful football program of the last decade without missing a beat.
“As a leader you often realize you have diamonds in the rough on your staff,” Sargeant said. “Through the interview process, what I realized was we didn't have a diamond in the rough, we had a polished diamond in our midst. Quite frankly, he made it very clear that he is absolutely the perfect choice and fit for that job.
“He really understands our tradition of excellence. He's got a great rapport with the kids. He's respected by our students, players, staff and community. He's an outstanding teacher in the classroom and on the field. He has very high expectations for his students and his athletes, and he's going to do everything in his power to help them achieve those expectations and standards.”
Kay echoed Sargeant's praise.
“There's not going to be much of a change at all with Brad taking over for me,” said Kay, who will be inducted to the IHSFCA hall of Fame in April. “He's been an outstanding assistant and he played a key role in our seven-year run here.
“He has a great understanding of what we've been doing on offense. He has a good feel for the game and knows how to go about winning games. He has excellent character and organizations skills and he's a very good communicator. He's a great choice.”
“I think the biggest challenge for Brad right now is going to be finding a guy as good as Brad to take Brad's spot. He picked up a lot of slack.”
Seaburg knows it won't be easy to follow in the footsteps of Kay, whose teams over the last seven seasons reached the quarterfinals or better six times.
“Bruce has really been a mentor to me more than anything,” Seaburg said. “He's done a great job at Cary-Grove. I just feel honored to even be mentioned as the person who will follow him. He's a legend.
“The community has high expectations. We're real excited. There's a challenge ahead and we're ready. We're ready to go.”