LEXINGTON, Ky. — John Schlarman, a former University of Kentucky football star on the field who coached his alma mater for two different stints, died Thursday after a two-year fight with cancer. He was 45.
Schlarman first joined the UK football staff as a graduate assistant coaching offensive linemen under Hal Mumme in 2000. He continued to coach the O-line in 2001 under Guy Morriss, and in 2002 coached the offensive line and tight ends under Morriss.
After an 11-year absence that saw him have postseason success at both the high school and college levels, Schlarman started his second stint as a Wildcats coach in 2013, joining Mark Stoops' first staff under offensive coordinator Neal Brown. He would go on to be UK's offensive line coach for the entirety of Stoops' first seven seasons and continued coaching into the 2020 season until he was unable to make the Cats' trip to Missouri, their fifth game of the year.
"John was everything we all strive to be — honest, tough, fair, respected," Stoops said in a news release. "Kentucky football won't be the same without him but his legacy will never fade. He was a fighter and we will strive every day to honor his warrior spirit."
UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart called Schlarman "an incredible inspiration."
"He taught people how to live and showed all of us what it means to be courageous," Barnhart said.
Schlarman also was a star player at UK. He was named to the All-Southeastern Conference Freshman Team at offensive guard in 1994 and was named to the Associated Press All-SEC First Team and coaches' All-SEC Second Team as a senior in 1997 despite twice undergoing reconstructive knee surgeries in the years prior. He was a four-year starter for the Wildcats.
"John Schlarman has the greatest work habits of anybody I've ever worked with, and I've been around a long time," then-Kentucky head coach Bill Curry told the Jefferson County Alumni Club prior to the 1995 season.
In the last game he actively coached, Kentucky defeated Tennessee, 34-7, in Knoxville, its first win at Neyland Stadium since 1984. Schlarman, who coached from the press box, was awarded the game ball by the team after that Oct. 17 victory.
Under Schlarman, UK's offensive line was twice a finalist for the Joe Moore Award, presented annually to the nation's top unit. The Wildcats led the league in rushing with 279.1 yards per game in 2019, a season in which they set school records for most rushing yards in a season and in consecutive weeks (against Tennessee-Martin, and then against Louisville) set single-game records for rushing yardage. Kentucky also finished as a top-half rushing team in the Southeastern Conference in 2016 (third) and 2018 (sixth), and the unit's level of play has resulted in an identity — "The Big Blue Wall" — that's taken on a life of its own within and outside the program.
Schlarman also was credited as the lead recruiter of several prominent Kentucky players under Stoops, including an in-state trio — Kash Daniel, Drake Jackson and Landon Young — who were crucial in the program's recent turnaround.
"I owe that man a debt of gratitude that I can never repay," Young said of Schlarman following Kentucky's win over Tennessee this season. "It's just not getting me ready for football or getting me ready for the next level of football, and getting me ready to try and lead my team as best as I can throughout the season. He leads me to be a man. To be able to see what he goes through, he shows us what a true definition of a man is and that there are no excuses. ... He's one of the hardest-working coaches I've ever been taught under, and one of the best guys that I've ever been taught under, period."
Schlarman was the defensive line coach at Bourbon County High School for two years prior to his first stint with the Wildcats. He returned to the high school ranks in 2003 when he was hired as the head coach at Campbell County, where he spent two seasons before taking over at Newport High School. After leading the Wildcats to playoff appearances in 2005 and 2006, he was hired to Larry Blakeney's staff at Troy as an offensive line coach.
Schlarman coached under Blakeney through the 2012 season, after which he followed Brown back to Kentucky.
Brown, now the head coach at West Virginia University, called Schlarman one of the nicest, but fiercest, people he's ever been around. His toughness knew no limits, an opinion Brown says was only strengthened as he watched his friend battle cholangiocarcinoma, a rare form of cancer with which he was diagnosed on July 30, 2018.
"He cares about other people, almost to a fault, while he's been sick," Brown said in a recent phone interview. "The toughness isn't just the physical things that he's been able to do. As a player, it's been well-documented, he was undersized but an All-SEC player. I think he took that mentality into coaching. We worked together at Troy and at Kentucky, and his group, I thought they've always overachieved. His demeanor always transferred to his offensive line. ...
"In that league, they've been special. He recruited those guys. He developed those guys. They play in an image that he played in."
Before starring for UK and in the coaching ranks, Schlarman was a standout lineman at Highlands High School, home to one of the state's premier football programs. He was named to the All-State team as a junior and senior while playing on both sides of the line, and he was part of state championship teams in 1989 and 1992; he was named team MVP following the 1992 title. Schlarman was inducted into the Highlands Hall of Fame in 2019.
Schlarman in his final three years at Troy was the Trojans' running game coordinator, but at UK he never outwardly showed great interest in being more than a position coach or looking elsewhere for an offensive coordinator job. It boiled down to one thing, Brown believes.
"John Schlarman loves Kentucky," Brown said. "He loves the university. He loves the state. He's proud as hell to represent that university and that state.
"He's loyal. Once he's your friend, he's your friend for life."
Schlarman is survived by his wife, Lee Anne, three sons (Joseph, Benjamin and Matthew) and a daughter (Evelyn). Funeral arrangements are pending.
