Chad Slagle hasn’t coached a football game at Edwardsville High School for 15 years, but his experiences at EHS continue to play a key role in his life.
Slagle, who was an assistant coach under former EHS head coach Tim Dougherty from 1998 through Dougherty’s final season in 2007, is the founder and owner of Slagle Financial, which has an administrative office in Edwardsville at 419 St. Louis St., with other locations in Illinois, Missouri and Florida.
Through his TV show, “The Chad Slagle Show: Coaching You to and Through Retirement,” and book, “Winning in Retirement: When Every Day is Saturday,” Slagle and his employees are spreading the importance of planning for retirement.
The football references for the show and the book are no coincidence.
“You have to be able to tell your story and football is part of my story,” Slagle said. “In my book, I talk about some of things that I learned in football. I got to thinking about games over the 10 years that I coached at Edwardsville.
Each week, the Edwardsville Intelligencer will release a "Where Are They Now?" story about former student-athletes from Edwardsville High School or Metro-East Lutheran. If there is a former student-athlete you would like to know about, please e-mail Scott Marion at smarion@edwpub.net.
“I think about 2001, when Edwardsville made it to the state finals for the first time, and 2002, when we got back to the championship game. In the quarterfinal game in 2001, we played Chicago Hubbard in Chicago and physically, we should not have been on the field with them. They had more speed and more size than we did, but we came out and won 7-0.”
The next week, in the semifinals, the Tigers posted a 21-14 victory over Chicago Catholic powerhouse St. Rita.
“Tim’s teams were so disciplined and almost every game, we would have fewer penalties than the other team,” Slagle said. “In that game, St. Rita had something like 150 yards in penalties and we had about 30. In my opinion, that was the difference in us winning or losing that game.
“We did a really good job of producing program kids. Our kids weren’t the biggest, the fastest or the strongest, but they worked hard, and they were ready to contribute by the time they were seniors. Some of them started out as average athletes and a lot of them weren’t D-I kids, but they bought into the program and did everything we told them to do.”
The Tigers’ back-to-back runner-up finishes in 2001 and 2002 were among the highlights of Slagle’s time at EHS, which also included playoff appearances in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006.
“Being with Tim for that long, I coached just about every position,” Slagle said. “There were times when he called the offense and the defense and there were times when (former assistant coach and athletic director) Brad Bevis called the defense.
“In that time frame, I coached running backs, tight ends, defensive backs, outside linebackers and the defensive line. It was whatever Tim needed, and as I grew as a coach, he gave me more responsibility.”
The responsibilities that Slagle had as an assistant coach at Edwardsville have translated into what he does in the business world.
“We have offices all over Illinois and Missouri as well as the Florida panhandle, with multiple advisors and multiple employees, and I probably learned more in the locker room and on the football field than I ever have in any classroom,” said Slagle, who cited discipline, structure and systemization as keys to both football and business.
“A lot of that I learned from Tim, and you can tell from the success of his teams. It doesn’t matter if it’s football, it doesn’t matter if it’s the business world and it doesn’t matter if you’re running a team or you’re running a business, a lot of the same things apply.”
Slagle grew up in Winchester, Illinois, where he competed in football, basketball and track and field at Winchester High School, graduating in 1991.
“When I was a kid, you would play every sport, and with my kids now, you’re lucky to play two sports. You almost have to pick one and you almost have to play that one year-round,” Slagle said. “Coming from a small farm town, you had to play every sport if you wanted to have a high school team.”
Slagle went on to play football at Illinois College from 1991 to 1994 and earned first-team all-conference honors as a safety in 1993 and 1994.
“(Former EHS baseball coach) Tom Pile grew up with my parents and I ran his name around to get it in front of Tim (Dougherty),” Slagle said. “My wife is from the Edwardsville area, and she was going to SIUE at the time, and that’s how we landed here.”
Slagle got into coaching after he moved to Edwardsville from Illinois College, and he started Slagle Financial in 1995 out of the back of his red Chevy pickup truck.
“I lived in the Cherry Hills subdivision in Edwardsville, and I remember walking across the street to watch a playoff game in 1997,” Slagle said. “I missed the locker room, and I missed the camaraderie, so I talked to Tim and that’s why I started coaching.
“I thought that by being a player, I would automatically be a good coach, but there is so much more to coaching as opposed to just playing. You play your position, and you react, but when you’re coaching, you have to see all angles. You have to understand what every player on the field is doing and if you’re on offense, you have to understand what the offense is doing.”
Slagle’s decision to start Slagle Financial was influenced by his parents and grandparents, who were forced to work their entire lives to make ends meet. He has made it his mission to make sure no other retirees face the same problem.
“Growing up where I did in a small farm town, most people didn’t save for retirement and they didn’t have a 401k or a retirement account,” Slagle said. “You just continued working and you had Social Security, but that was it.
“I’ve learned from being in this business for almost 30 years how important it is to build a game plan for retirement. You can’t wait until you retire to do that – you have to plan well before that, especially now when pensions are becoming a thing of the past.”
When Dougherty left Edwardsville after the 2007 season, Slagle decided it was time for him to get out of coaching.
“When I first started coaching, I just had my business, and I could leave at 2:00 to go the high school and it would be OK,” Slagle said. “As I started to build up my practice, it was taking a lot more time and it was time to start focusing more on that.
“Also, it was time for me to start focusing more on my family as well. I have four kids now and I when I started coaching, I had no kids.”
Slagle and his wife April live in Edwardsville with their children, including son Grayson, 21, a senior at Ole Miss; daughter Mabry, 19, a sophomore at Ole Miss; son Hudson, 16, a junior at EHS; and daughter Nola, 13, an eighth-grader at Lincoln Middle School.
Grayson played basketball and baseball at EHS and was part of the 2019 state champion baseball team, while Mabry was a cheerleader. Hudson plays baseball at EHS, and Nola plays soccer and basketball at Lincoln.
“I don’t really miss coaching in high school because I coached both of my boys’ teams until they were 15 or 16,” Slagle said. “Once they were old enough for me to coach them, it kind of filled that void.
“Sometimes it’s fun to just watch a football game and not analyze it. I enjoy being a fan and not a coach.”
With Slagle living and working in Edwardsville and his kids attending District 7 schools, the EHS connection remains strong.
“I have a good relationship with (assistant football and wrestling coach) Doug Heinz and I text him all the time,” Slagle said. “I keep up with Tim Dougherty, who is in Arizona now (as an assistant at Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona).
“My time at Edwardsville had a lasting impact on me and what I learned from coaching flows through my business. I’ve integrated it into my practice and now instead of coaching football players, I’m coaching other advisors in my firm.”
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Coaching football at Edwardsville left lasting impact on Slagle - The Edwardsville Intelligencer
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