By Keith Brake
Montezuma Magazine Editor
Bob Reade helped people get to a better place.
If that’s a definition for ‘greatness’, then Reade’s image belongs next to that word in the dictionary of your mind.
Husband, father, teacher, coach . . .warrior for Jesus.
Reade died in a Geneseo, Ill., hospital over the July 4th weekend, at the age of 87.
If you’re into football, you should know of him.
In 16 seasons as head grid coach at Division III Augustana College, in Rock Island, Ill., his Vikings won four straight national championships (1983-’86), after finishing second in 1982.
His teams at Augie won 146 games, lost just 23 and tied one, a winning percentage of .862.
He coached at Geneseo High School for 17 years prior to going to Augustana. His teams were 146-21-4, with Illinois state championships the last three years.
In 33 years, he had just one losing season: 4-5 his first year at Geneseo, in 1962. The school board had been considering dropping the sport, but kept going, with Reade.
And going, and going . . .
He surrounded himself with the best people he could. Their influence outlived his tenure there.
Geneseo didn’t have another losing season until 2018.
That’s 55 straight YEARS of winning football.
Who does that? Well, precious few.
Almost needless to say, his influence has been enormous. Many high school and college programs in the Quad-Cities region run Augustana’s vaunted wing-T offense, trying to replicate Reade’s success.
His teams made things look easy. They were simple, but not necessarily easy.
Greg King, an All-American at Augustana, said, “to him (Reade) , football was very easy. It came down to blocking, tackling and running hard. We worked on those three elements of the game.”
Tom Schmulbach was an assistant coach with Reade both at Augustana and Geneseo. They were a couple professors of football, over on the sideline. Constantly learning. Always teaching.
“Bob’s approach looked simple on the surface, but it was very sophisticated in how his players had to adapt to what the other teams tried to do against them.”
The key, said Schmulbach, “was meticulous preparation.”
The manifestation was incredible defense, year after year.
During Reade’s run at Geneseo, the team’s opponents averaged just seven points a game. At Augustana, it was 10 points.
More than 300 yards of wing-T rushing offense per game often had 30 points or more on the board well before the fourth quarter started.
“Our practices were focused and players were never expected to watch film or have group sessions outside of practice,” Schmulbach said.
That sat especially well with the Augustana administration, which could say its football players were student-athletes, and mean it.
David Wrath, for years the sports information director at Augie, called Reade an innovator in college football. “He was one of the first to have more than 100 players on the squad,” Wrath said. At a school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships, than meant enrollment, and revenue.
Dennis Riccio served as an assistant at Augustana for eight seasons. “The most important thing that I learned is that you can be highly successful and not have to sacrifice time with your family,” he said.
Bob and Mary Jo Reade brought 11 children into the world. His job at Augustana allowed a full tuition waiver to the private school for his kids.
Jay Penney, the quarterback on Augustana’s first national championship team in 1983, said upon learning of Reade’s death “all I thought about was his family and all of us that were lucky enough to be part of his life,” he said.
“He had a direct impact on me and the entire Penney family and was a mentor to thousands of young men.” Penney played at Geneseo, as did two older brothers, Rick and Steve, who went on to have football careers at the University of Iowa.
“His greatness will not be the championships and all the wins,” Jay Penney said, “but the positive effect he had with all of us.”
Faith, family and a unique sense of humor were things that came up with other former players and assistant coaches.
Reade was described as firm, fair and believing in the goodness of people. He expected them to prepare well, work hard and execute at their utmost ability.
Still, he kept things simple. Kurt Kreiter, another Augustana standout, said, “He demanded two simple rules: Obey the law and be a gentleman.”
Steve Bell, the present Augie coach, said, “his former players, when they talk about him, it’s always in a very, very very positive light. There was a lot of respect there – it wasn’t because he won, but because of the way he treated people.”
Reade was a big advocate of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and integrated it with his program.
I started covering Reade’s teams in 1968, my senior year at Geneseo High School. That continued until he left for Augustana.
What I recall was an ongoing curiosity about how things worked. Reade was my driver’s education teacher, and every morning he’d listen to the “Ellery Queen Minute Mysteries” on WGN radio in Chicago.
Queen was a mythical mystery writer who helped the police solve baffling murders. The program narrator would spell out the details of the “crime,” then during the commercial break we’d try to solve figure out “who done it.” Reade got them right, almost all of the time.
Geneseo once had a 52-game unbeaten streak snapped, and after the game, one of the things Reade said was, “the sun will come up tomorrow morning.”
I saw the coach about noon the next day. He hadn’t shaved, and I think he was still in the same clothes he had worn the night before.
“Well coach, the sun came up,” I said.
“Yes . .and I stayed up all night just to make sure it did!” he said.
Bob Reade made an appearance here in Montezuma. He came out to give the football players an inspirational talk back when Joe Donovan was the head coach.
When I was arranging the details with him, Reade said, “where are you at now?”
“Montezuma, Iowa,” I said.
“Boy, Keith, you’ve really made it, haven’t you?” he shot back, and I could hear the smile and see the wink right over a telephone line. A land line, no less.
Bob Reade was the first college football coach in history, at any level, to win 100 games in his first 10 years.
During the decade of the 80s, Augie went 103-10-1, a .908 average that was the best ever for 10 years, at that time.
His Augie teams were 44-6 during the month of November.
I mentioned Jay Penney. He entered a high school game against a fierce rival, Rochelle, Ill., at their place, when he was a skinny sophomore. He brought Geneseo in with a closed win, and Reade was ecstatic.
“You watch him go now, Keith,” Reade said. “He will get better and better.”
He did. Augustana had a 60-game unbeaten streak, from 1983 into 1987. The school made a national record 10 straight playoff appearances from 1981-1990.
The 1987 seniors never lost. Their college record: 49-0-1.
Back in 1975, the Geneseo program was really hitting full stride, when Reade spoke to author William Carter, in a book entitled, “Middle West Country.”
“We place too much emphasis on winning,” Reade said. “The purpose of sport should be to teach a boy to extend himself to his best self, to play with pain, to overcome obstacles.”
“A boy can play a game in which he has extended himself far beyond his capabilities, yet the scoreboard and the crowd may call him a loser,” Reade said.
“I have said the scoreboard is the biggest crime in America. We need all-state boys more than we need all-state players.”
Bob Reade has had a huge influence on my adult life. I have said that there has never been anyone quite like him.
Recently, Reade was asked to write a limerick about himself. This is what he wrote:
“There was a boy named Bob
Who usually dressed like a slob,
but dressed up or dressed down
He was still . . . Bob!”
But, it perhaps was Tom Schmulbach who put it best about the coach:
“People say he’s one in a million,” Schmulbach said. “But that’s downplaying him. There was only one Bob Reade. Period.”
Contributors to this story included Tom Johnston of The Daily Dispatch/Quad-City Times, the Augustana College Sports Information Dept., and Vandemore Funeral Home Ltd. of Geneseo.