With the chance to coach his son for the majority of his high school football career, Michael Schaefer is returning to familiar ground.
Schaefer resigned last week after three seasons in the Ready program — the past two as head coach in either an interim or full-time capacity — to become an assistant coach at Upper Arlington, where his son, Bo, will be a sophomore lineman next fall.
"I love it at Bishop Ready, but (UA) coach (Justin) Buttermore had reached out to me a couple of weeks ago about coming back," Schaefer said. "I always talk with our kids at Ready about putting our faith and family first. I could not miss my son playing high school football.
"It was a very difficult decision stepping away from Ready, one we prayed about as a family, but in the end, we felt this was the best move for our family."
Schaefer, who will be the Golden Bears' special teams coordinator and inside linebackers coach, was an assistant at UA from 2003-18 under Darrell Mayne, Mike Golden and Joel Cutler. Schaefer left the staff after Cutler resigned in December 2018 and coached the defensive line at Hilliard Davidson in 2019 before coming to Ready as defensive coordinator in 2020.
Schaefer took over the Silver Knights in fall 2021 after Cutler took an indefinite leave of absence, guiding them to a 5-6 record, before shedding his interim tag in January 2022. Ready went 8-4 last fall, winning two playoff games before losing to Gnadenhutten Indian Valley 34-10 in a Division IV, Region 15 semifinal.
Although Schaefer has not coached in UA's program for five years, he has remained in the school district as a health and physical education teacher at Jones Middle School. His older daughter, 2022 UA graduate Samantha Schaefer, swam and played water polo for the Golden Bears.
Schaefer, who was UA's boys athletic director from 2010-14, started 38 games as an offensive lineman for Toledo from 1996-2000 — helping the Rockets to three Mid-American Conference-West Division championships — and played for two seasons in Arena Football League 2 before getting into coaching at Davenport (Iowa) North in 2002.
Ready, whose football team competed as an auxiliary member of the MSL-Ohio the last six years while all other sports remained in the CCL, is joining the new Central Buckeye League after this school year. That league also will consist of Bexley, Buckeye Valley, Columbus Academy, Columbus School for Girls, Grandview Heights, Whitehall and Worthington Christian.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ready football coach steps down to join Upper Arlington staff
