‘He definitely had a captive audience’: Idaho legend Mark Schlereth lends his OL expertise to Vandals

MOSCOW, Idaho – Perhaps he was a bit less than a force. But certainly, he projected an aura.

Mark Schlereth, roaming the sidelines in jeans, a black T shirt and a ball cap, hovering over the offensive line gatherings and conducting hands on tutorials with offensive linemen during the University of Idaho’s scrimmage Saturday, provided a sense of serious endeavor to what many football fans can only appreciate as big people shoving each other.

“It was awesome to have Mark here. It was a credit for him to give up his time for Vandal pride. It was great for the offensive line, and (offensive line coach Cody) Booth,” UI coach Jason Eck said.

When last seen in the Kibbie Dome, Schlereth was shrugging off multiple surgeries to star for a 1988 Big Sky Champion Vandals team that reached the national semi-finals of what is now the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. His own coach, Keith Gilbertson, tried to convince the often injured Schlereth to retire, but he held on doggedly to a college football career that maybe improbably turned into a 12-year NFL career with three Super Bowl championships and subsequently highly successful jobs as a network football broadcaster, occasional actor and food entrepreneur.

Schlereth, said he has been a fan of Eck, a fellow offensive lineman at the University of Wisconsin, who became Idaho’s head coach before the 2022 season after a distinguished career as an assistant, most recently at South Dakota State University. When the two met up at a hall of fame program last spring, Schlereth said Eck asked him if he would come to Moscow to spend a few days with the Idaho team this preseason.

“I said ‘absolutely.’”

With insights gleaned from his professional career, Schlereth said he sought to take the Vandals beyond the mere X’s and O’s of football to the intricate nuances of football tactics and strategy.

“How do you take the passive out of pass protection?” he said. “Understanding the global perspective of the game.

“I like the deeper level of understanding about football,” he continued. “The offensive line is the most skilled position in football. There is no greater skill than moving a man from point A to point B against his will.”

Eck said Schlereth conveyed to the Vandals that when he was playing “he was really professional about the time he put in” and also that “there is life after football.”

At Idaho, and on to his NFL career, Schlereth said he relied on a fanatical attention to detail “not making errors, being professional in your technique. Even when I was warming up, getting loose, I would try to have perfect footwork. That carries over when you are tired in the fourth quarter.”

And impeccable technique allowed him to accommodate to the decline of physical ability from 29 surgeries over the course of his career.

“As I got older, I couldn’t afford to be out of position. I couldn’t recover anymore,” he said.

Schlereth’s son, Daniel, played professional baseball from 2007 to 2019, including four years as a Major League pitcher. Schlereth said he cautioned him “just because you play a professional sport doesn’t mean you are a professional.”

Eck was pleased at the degree to which his players seemed to absorb what Schlereth was telling them.

“He spoke about all the work he put into it when he was playing here, showing up at the facility at 5 a.m. He definitely had a captive audience.”

For his part, Schlereth seemed pleased that his college team appears to be in good hands.

“They are a connected football team,” he said. “Eck does a great job of that. These kids are for each other. Winning helps that, of course, but these kids are really committed.”

Schlereth warmly recalls his own experience at Idaho that has endured for decades. About 10 years after he graduated, he says, Schlereth and a number of his old teammates began holding annual reunions at Lake Roosevelt. It is a tradition that has continued for 25 years.

“These are relationships that will change your life,” he said. They are a worthy counterweight to the current culture of college football influenced by the transfer portal and the opportunity for Name, Image and Likeness payments, Schlereth believes.

“Nothing usurps the value of being together,” Schlereth said of being a team member. “Somebody gives you $1,000. The government is going to take half of that. Is chasing $50,000 and losing that connection worth it?

“Relationships last a lifetime. If you are just a mercenary you never develop that.”