Veteran coach John Ivlow on how Bolingbrook gets kids to the next level

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I recently was able to spend some time and talk to Bolingbrook veteran head coach John Ivlow. Ivlow — who has posted an impressive 141-56 overall record in 18 seasons as the Raiders' head coach — is a Bolingbrook police officer and the school's resource officer. He has led the Raiders to 17 state playoff appearances over his 18 seasons at Bolingbrook. We had a chance to touch on a number of different subjects including the factors in the Raiders program's success along with its impressive success rate of sending kids to play at the college level.

EDGYTIM: Bolingbrook has been as consistent of a winning program as any in the Chicagoland area. How can you get this program to reach those heights every single season?

JOHN IVLOW: Well, I was just having this same conversation a few days ago with my oldest boy (former JCA running back and current Hilltoppers assistant coach Michael Ivlow). I told him you need three things to have a successful program which is money, good coaches and a good offseason program. Those are the three biggest things you need to have in place if you ever want to take a head coaching job.

EDGYTIM: I would classify your coaching style and philosophy as being much more modern compared to many other coaches in the state. You've played or coached at literally every level of football (including playing in the NFL for the Bears and the 49ers) and how did all of that experience help shape your style and approach as a head coach? 

IVLOW: It was just seeing and experiencing things at several different levels and also seeing what worked, why they were successful, then seeing what could be taken and incorporated and work into a high school program. Whether it was good or bad something was taken from each level and merged into the program. The most important thing is you got to be able to connect to those kids, get thought to those kids and then make them run through a brick wall for you.  A lot of that starts by showing them that you would do the same for them. 

EDGYTIM: You could write a book when it comes to the entire recruiting process. How do you and your program handle the entire recruiting issue with the parents and the players at Bolingbrook?

IVLOW: Our parents will go through four parent meetings in their high school career at Bolingbrook starting with the lower levels. My lower level coaches are instructed to go over certain subjects and important issues like GPA and our behavior expectations for each player, and if they don't conform they are sent packing. I leave the dirty work at fist to the lower level coaches because they set the expectations for what we expect on the varsity level. Once they get to the varsity level they already know what we expect from them and that goes back to the lower levels and what was put in place. Also our high school does a fantastic job of getting kids into more core classes and we've all but eliminated the non-core classes. A lot of our kids will graduate with a surplus of core classes which helps with colleges and admissions. So we cover a lot of things with our kids and parents and our guidance counselors, administration and teachers are on board to what it takes to meet NCAA requirements. It's a team effort and we have a really good team at Bolingbrook.

EDGYTIM:  Do you have any idea from a numbers standpoint how many kids have gone onto play in college since you've been the head coach at Bolingbrook?

IVLOW: I do, actually. Our mayor (Roger Claar) asked me for some stats that he could use for his State of the Village address. One that I can remember is that we've had 72 kids to play at the D1 level since 2002. We also have over 200 plus kids playing football at all of the other levels from D2 to D3 and everyone in between. 

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