Next month, Bob Gaddis will be entering his 40th year as a high school football head coach in Indiana.
For all but the first few of those 40 years, Gaddis has been involved with the Indiana Football Coaches Association. The 62-year-old Columbus East coach has been the organization’s executive director the past several years.
Gaddis, who began his career as a head coach in 1979 at Tri-County, first became involved with the IFCA in 1982, when he was at South Putnam. He became involved in his region, and Dave Land, who was the IFCA executive director and secretary at the time, asked him to serve on the UPI coaches board.
“From that point, I got more and more involved with the coaches association,” Gaddis said. “Wherever I was at, I tried to actively be involved in the region.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
When he was coaching at Danville in 1986, Gaddis was nominated to be the IFCA’s second vice president. Two years later, he became the organization’s youngest president at the age of 32.
Gaddis took the coaching job at Pike in 1989, then later moved on to Evansville Reitz. He came to East in 2001. Throughout that time, Gaddis has stayed involved in the IFCA, including working with the state coaches clinic each March.
Land reorganized the IFCA’s executive board in the mid-2000s and aligned it with National Organization of Coaches Association Directors (NOCAD). The group made Land the executive director, and Land asked Gaddis to run for assistant executive director.
A few years later, Land wanted to back off a little bit and asked the board of directors to appoint Gaddis as executive director. Land became the executive secretary and treasurer.
The IFCA, which was formed in 1970, now has more than 1,800 members. Several colleges are associate members and support the organization.
All members have a $1 million liability policy that is negotiated every year. Through NOCAD, all the coaches association groups around the country have that policy.
“Now, we have a bigger buying power, so when we negotiate that insurance policy, it’s for thousands of coaches across the country,” Gaddis said. “We’ve learned a lot from going to the NOCAD models since we’ve been doing that.”
The IFCA sponsors a weekly coaches poll during the season and picks an All-State team, position winners and Mr. Football. The organization also picks players for and sponsors the North-South All-Star Game, which takes place tonight at North Central High School in Indianapolis.
Gaddis and the IFCA more or less are liaisons to the IHSAA. Since Gaddis has been executive director, the IFCA has authored and proposed summer regulations that are in place now. Those came from polling membership and proposed to IHSAA.
The IHSAA, through the IFCA’s recommendation, also has defined levels of contact and length of in-season practices. For example, schools can not hold two-a-days two days in a row in the preseason and are limited to two days of full contact a week during the season.
“We try to find out what’s going on around the country and then try to put together what’s best for Indiana, and then we take that to the (IHSAA),” Gaddis said.
Gaddis said he and the IFCA have a tremendous working relationship with IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox and assistant commissioner in charge of football Robert Faulkens.
“Robert comes and speaks to our board of directors a couple times a year,” Gaddis said. “He addresses all of our coaches at our clinic. He’ll be at our All-Star Game. I can call him up and say, ‘Hey, this is what the football coaches are thinking. Tell me what you think.’ He’s been a real friend of football.”
Faulkens serves on the rules committee for the National Federation of High Schools. Last year, Indiana was one of three states to use a 40-second play clock, beginning with the end of the previous play.
“He was instrumental in getting that done and making us a pilot state,” Gaddis said. “Now, we think that’s going to become the national rule.”
Last fall, Gaddis won his 300th career game on his way to leading Columbus East to the Class 5A state championship. He also led the Olympians to the 4A state title in 2013 and a 5A runner-up finish in 2016.
Gaddis had been East’s athletics director for 10 years before retiring from that position in 2015. He came back the next year to work at the school with physical education option/waivers and also its credit recovery program, where if a student wants to get credits to graduate early or to catch up with their grade level, it’s on an Internet based class that he administers.
“So I’m in the building every day, which is great,” Gaddis said.
Gaddis also has been representing the IFCA at coaches clincs across the country. Earlier this year, he spoke at the state high school clinic in Minnesota and at a Nike coaches clinic in Louisville.
This summer, Gaddis is speaking at state high school clinics in Nebraska and North Carolina.
“It’s been pretty fun,” Gaddis said. “I get go to and see how people do things.”
Perhaps as important, they get to see how Gaddis does things.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Bob Gaddis” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Name: Bob Gaddis
Age: 62
Occupation: Head football coach and staff member at Columbus East High School
Overall record: 304-134
Record at Columbus East: 186-34
Born: Nov. 12, 1955 in New Castle
1974: Graduated from Muncie Southside High School
1978: Graduated from Ball State, degree in physical education health and U.S. history
1978-79: Hamilton Southeastern assistant football coach
1980-81: Tri-County head coach
1982-82: South Putnam head coach
1985-88: Danville head coach
1989-90: Pike head coach
1991-2000: Evansville Reitz head coach
2001-present: Columbus East head coach
2004: Won first of 14 consecutive Hoosier Hills Conference titles, first of 10 sectional titles and first of nine regional titles at Columbus East
2011: Won 100th game at Columbus East, 35-21 over Floyd Central on Sept. 23
2013: Led Columbus East to the Class 4A state championship with a 28-27 win against Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger
2014: Inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame
2016: Led Columbus East to a Class 5A state runner-up finish after a 16-13 title-game loss to Westfield
2017: Won 300th career game, 56-14 against Bedford North Lawrence on Oct. 27
2017: Led Columbus East to the Class 5A state title with a 42-28 win against Kokomo
[sc:pullout-text-end]
