Roger Strausberger had been interested in becoming a high school athletic director for a while.
He has gotten his wish, albeit not under ideal circumstances.
Strausberger has been named interim athletic director at Naperville Central, where he is a dean of students and the boys volleyball coach. He also is an assistant for the boys golf team.
Strausberger replaces Andy Lutzenkirchen, who was hired in 2012 following the retirement of Marty Bee. Lutzenkirchen has been reassigned to other, unspecified duties due to an ongoing Illinois High School Association investigation into violations of bylaws involving transfer students.
“It’s a little bit of a shock to us all, but it’s an opportunity that I look forward to here,” Strausberger said. “It is just an interim position for the school year, same with the dean position.
“If I decide that this isn’t for me, then I can always go back to that.”
Strausberger has coached in District 203 for 18 years. He guided the Naperville North boys volleyball team to second place in the state in 2006 and came to Central in 2009, where he has been a dean for 12 years.
Eric Kaisling, who was Strausberger’s assistant in volleyball, has been named the team’s interim coach. District 203 policy prohibits athletic directors from also coaching a sport, though an exception might have been made for Strausberger.
“The district was going to allow me to be able to coach, as well, during the interim year, but I told them I needed to jump into this with both feet,” Strausberger said. “I won’t be coaching volleyball or golf this year.”
He first seriously thought about pursuing an AD job about a decade ago.
“It was something that I was interested in initially when I got into administration,” Strausberger said. “When Marty retired, it wasn’t a good time for me and my family to apply to make that transition.
“My kids are a little older now, so when this opportunity presented itself, I said I would give it a try.”
Strausberger inherits a department in turmoil. In March, another school alleged that Naperville Central failed to turn in required paperwork on a football player who transferred in. A subsequent internal investigation found missing paperwork on additional student-athletes.
Naperville Central Principal Bill Wiesbrook said in an email that “our district leadership feels that commenting on an investigation that is still ongoing is not appropriate.”
IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson explained that when a student transfers, both schools have to fill out different portions of a principals’ concurrence form.
“Within the document, if certain questions are answered a certain way, then it triggers an eligibility ruling request from our office,” Anderson said. “There are many reasons to request a ruling, but for a number of football players, that wasn’t getting done, and as a result, per our bylaws, students are ineligible until that form is completed and on file.”
If a team uses an ineligible player, it has to forfeit all games in which that player participated. The Redhawks forfeited all 17 of their wins over the past three seasons.
Additional penalties could affect other sports. Anderson estimated the paperwork problem involves between 10 and 15 students, including players from the girls soccer, girls basketball and girls track teams. One of the football players also played one season for the boys basketball team.
The problem for some goes beyond just the missing concurrence form.
“There is also a requirement for students to meet the residence bylaw,” Anderson said. “Through an investigation that was done by administration at Central, they believe that some of those football transfers didn’t meet the residence bylaw. At least two or three didn’t meet both requirements.”
Anderson said District 203 has taken responsibility for the violations and has worked closely with the IHSA in the investigation. He does not think the mistakes were intentional.
“In our conversations, I think from the athletic director’s perspective, it was likely just an oversight,” Anderson said. “Someone could argue that they were trying to build a football powerhouse, but it clearly wasn’t that when they also discovered some transfers in other sports.”
Anderson expects District 203 to make a final report on how the oversight occurred by the end of July, at which point the IHSA could assess further sanctions.
In the meantime, Strausberger is busy getting up to speed and anticipates he won’t have a problem dealing with the paperwork and other nuances of the job.
“I’ve coached multiple sports here, and I’ve been in and around athletics my whole life,” Strausberger said. “I like being around the different teams, and I like the details of the scheduling and everything else. It should be a good fit.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
