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Luke Engelhardt resigns from Yorkville, joins W. Aurora staff

Foxes' alum to become full-time assistant athletic director for Blackhawks

Luke Engelhardt, pictured above during the 2015-16 season, led the Yorkville girls' basketball team to five winning seasons in six years. He will start his new role as the West Aurora assistant athletic director on Friday, July 1, leaving the Yorkville School District after eight years.

By KRISTIN SHARP

Despite his Yorkville roots, Luke Engelhardt is saying goodbye to the Yorkville School District.

The 2004 Yorkville graduate came back to the Foxes eight years ago when he joined the high school staff in the physical education department, but on July 1, Engelhardt will begin his first day at West Aurora High School as the full-time assistant athletic director.

“It was an incredibly tough decision stepping out of coaching,” Engelhardt said. “Developing the relationships I’ve had with the athletes, parents, community and the relationships with the administrators, the P.E. department and the athletic department – all those things were extremely tough to walk away from. I still live in town and hope to stay in contact with them, but the opportunity is something that I couldn’t pass up. A dream of mine is to be an athletic administrator and I believe this is the first step. As much as I love Yorkville and everything they’ve done for me, professionally, this is an opportunity I’m really excited about.”

On Monday, the Yorkville School Board approved Engelhardt’s resignation as the physical education Department Chair and teacher, assistant athletic director and head girls’ basketball coach. Engelhardt had previously been the head golf coach at Yorkville as well.

In his six seasons as the girls basketball head coach, Engelhardt has produced five winning seasons. The Foxes finished the 2015-16 season with a 25-3 record, which fell just shy of the program record 26-2, which was set in the 1980-81 season. It was also the Foxes’ first undefeated Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference finish at 13-0.

Engelhardt will work with West Aurora athletic director Jason Buckley, who took the position in 2012 after teaching and coaching at Oswego East.

“I’ve started to get to know the staff there recently and I’m excited to work with that department,” Engelhardt said.

“We had a lot of qualified candidates and his skill set matched up very well with what we needed,” Buckley said. “It was the right place at the right time, and we’re really excited to have him.”