DANVILLE — Bob Lehmann isn’t afraid of taking on a challenge.
He’s a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel whose 28 years of service included a two-year deployment in Kuwait.
A unique component to Lehmann’s newest job exists, though. One that might intimidate others in his shoes.
“It’ll be interesting to see how well the principles and philosophies I’ve picked up … can translate to the 8-man game,” Lehmann said.
Lehmann is the newest Schlarman football coach, bringing the Hilltoppers back into the Illinois 8-Man Association ranks after they sat out the fall 2021 campaign. The program is scheduled to open its 2022 slate on Aug. 26 with a game against Blue Ridge in Farmer City.
“It’s been great. The support from the administration has been fantastic,” Lehmann said. “The attitude of the boys throughout the summer conditioning has been outstanding. Through all the heat and everything over the last couple weeks, attendance has been pretty steady.”
Lehmann is a football head coach for the first time since the mid-1990s.
The 64-year-old Westville High School social studies teacher preceded Guy Goodlove as the Tigers’ football coach, overseeing their 1993 and 1994 campaigns. Lehmann then served as an assistant coach under Goodlove between 1996 and 1999, and Lehmann also was a Westville wrestling coach and girls’ track and field coach at one time or another.
More recently, Lehmann has spent the last four school years as a Schlarman junior high boys’ basketball assistant coach. His son, Mark, played for a 2021-22 Hilltoppers squad that captured the IESA Class 1A eighth-grade state championship.
“The opportunity (to coach high school football) came up, and I discussed it with my family,” Bob Lehmann said. “It was something that came at the right time, and we decided to pursue it.”
Schlarman officials announced in 2019 that the school was leaving its 11-man football cooperative with Hoopeston Area and Armstrong-Potomac after six seasons to pursue the formation of its own 8-man group.
The 2019 Hilltoppers quickly impressed under then-coach Matt Blurton, finishing with a 7-4 record. But the team struggled under then-coach Spencer Tolson during the condensed spring 2021 season and went 0-5. Low athlete turnout for the fall 2021 campaign caused Schlarman officials to cancel the Hilltoppers’ entire schedule of games.
Tolson actually remains on Lehmann’s staff as an assistant.
“We look at it as, I don’t want to say rebuilding, but just taking the program to a different level,” Lehmann said. “(Tolson has been) active on the staff. He couldn’t be more supportive and helpful in trying to get me acclimated to the 8-man game and working with the kids in the weight room.”
Lehmann said summer workouts are averaging athlete attendance in the mid-teens. This is less of an issue in the 8-man game versus the 11-man game, and Lehmann said he and his staff are “encouraged with what we see” regardless.
Among the players Lehmann highlighted in Schlarman’s lead-up to August were senior Chris Brown, juniors Owen Jones, Dillon Hemker and Damien Linares, sophomore Jerry Reed and freshmen Lincoln Cravens, Jerrius Atkinson and Liam Billings.
Brown, Jones, Hemker and Linares all were on the Hilltoppers’ spring 2021 football roster, and Brown played as a freshman in 2019 as well. Reed was a key contributor to Schlarman boys’ basketball as a freshman last school year.
Cravens, Atkinson and Billings all were part of the aforementioned eighth-grade state-champion boys’ basketball squad. Atkinson followed that basketball season by winning IESA Class 1A boys’ track and field state championships in the 110-meter hurdles, 100-meter dash and the 400 earlier this year.
“We have a lot of speed, and we’re trying to figure out ways we can maximize that aspect of the players,” Lehmann said. “For right now, we just want to strive to be competitive, and from there the wins and losses will come.”
Lehmann, a Western Illinois graduate who is going on 30 years teaching at Westville High, said “good things happen for the right reason when you’re in the right spot at the right time.”
He was referencing becoming Schlarman’s football coach when making that statement. But perhaps it also can apply to the Hilltoppers’ on-field product this fall.
“We stress the discipline of showing up every day and coming to work and being prepared,” Lehmann said. “Gelling and coming together as a team, and depending on your teammates to do their job and them depending on you to do yours. We want to be fundamentally sound. We want to be aggressive in our play in all three phases of the game.
“If we do those things right and get the players prepared, then hopefully positive results will come forth.”
