Coaching is in new Penn offensive coordinator Bill Schmitz' blood. Following in his father's footsteps, Schmitz has had over 20 years of experience, including coaching his own son in college. The Daily Pennsylvanian sits down to learn about one of Penn's newest hires - and where you'll always find him on Opening Day.
Daily Pennsylvanian: So you came here and started working with the team right away. How are you settling into the Philly area?
Bill Schmitz: I really enjoy Philadelphia. Since I left [my home town of] Cincinnati, I've spent nine of my adult years in the Northeast. . I'm comfortable in big cities, I'm comfortable in the Northeast. .I like how much the Philadelphia people like Penn. . They have a love affair with Franklin Field, they love coming to games here.
DP: Are you living in Philadelphia now?
BS: I'm living outside in Collegeville right now. Due to me and my wife's careers, we're doing the geographic bachelorhood thing, so I'm actually living with friends of mine from college.
DP: So you were a two-sport athlete in college. What was that like?
BS: At that time in Division III they didn't have spring football. So at the Coast Guard Academy we had a lot of two-sport athletes. . You didn't have the head coaches with their own personal agendas, trying to keep you from playing the other sport. In fact our head baseball coach was the runningbacks coach.
DP: So were you a better football player? Did you play both all your life?
BS: All my life I played football and baseball. I also played basketball two years in high school. . I actually had more success on the college level as a baseball player than I did as a football player.
DP: What position did you play?
BS: I was a catcher. In football due to some injuries freshman year, I really didn't play quarterback again until my senior year. I was a kicker and I worked almost as a student coach two years, which sort of gave me a bug for coaching.
DP: So I was going to ask when you decided to pursue a career in coaching, but I guess it goes back to your college days?
BS: Well, my father was a coach at Cincinnati, Ohio. He ran the physical education program and the three main sports at the time, football, basketball and baseball, at a Catholic grade school. He was also a semi-pro [football] coach. . I always seemed to be in the van with him, watching his teams play.
I really liked my job when I was in the service. I enjoyed it. When you're out in the middle of the ocean in a pretty nice environment and you're thinking about coaching and drawing plays, I just didn't know if [the Coast Guard] was my calling.
I coached a little-league baseball team in high school. The summer before I went to the Academy, I coached my baseball team for a few weeks because our coach was on vacation.
It's funny because my brother is the head baseball coach at Eastern Illinois University, so the two oldest in the family have gone into coaching. And my sister is a dancer, but she teaches dance at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. So my father steered us into education and coaching, or we just followed his lead I guess.
DP: Do you just have two siblings?
BS: No, I'm the oldest of seven.
DP: So what's your favorite sport to watch?
BS: If I could watch one sporting event, I'd watch a college basketball game in Madison Square Garden. When I lived in New York, I went to the NIT five years in a row.
DP: Growing up in Cincinnati, are you a Reds fan?
BS: A die-hard Reds fan! That's the one thing I have to do every summer. I have to get back to Cincinnati and take my mom to Opening Day. I think my mom's gone to the Reds home opener for the last 25-30 years.
DP: What was it like coaching your son in college?
BS: It was something I don't think either one of us would give up. A lot of people in our business don't get to be around their children in their college age.
There had to be a lot of tough moments for him, when pressure got on me and when he became the starting quarterback. The press . can find any angle they want to do a story and the one time the angle was, 'Matt was playing because he was Bill's son.' But finally me and the writer talked about it and I said 'Let's just let him be No. 10 and go from there.' And for the last year and a half it was never mentioned.
