John Schindele was a math teacher, but was also Interlake’s first head football coach. He was only at the school for four years, but he managed to compile the most impressive record of a new school in Kingco history. The Saints went 35-2-1 in his four years as head coach, culminating in an undefeated 1970 season, and an unofficial state championship. “He got the utmost out of every member of the team,” stated a tribute printed to him in the 1971 yearbook, “He took a mediocre player and made him good, and a good player great.” In recognition for his four years as Interlake’s head coach, his players awarded him and his wife an all-expenses paid trip to Pasadena to go to the Rose Bowl.
John would later coach football for Sammamish, and he then spent over thirty years working in the scouting department for the Seattle Seahawks.
Aside from his legacy as a football coach, John was also a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a World War II war hero. In 1944, he once spent fifty-two hours in the ocean after an attack by Japanese ships. Near the end of his ordeal, he and a fellow sailor found a life raft and pulled six others to safety.
John died on May 27, 2014. He was 88 years old.
His obituary can be found here.
