Jared Shaner will be back on a football sideline this fall.

The former coach at Lincoln and Mt. Vernon stepped away from coaching in 2016 to become the athletic director at Dixon, closer to where he and his wife grew up in Prophetstown. He will once again lead a football program, as he was named Dixon’s football coach by the board of education this week.

“The last four or five nights, I can tell I’m back in head-coaching mode,” he said. “I’m not sleeping well and I have a pad of paper next to my bed and when I’m waking up in the middle of the night, I’m jotting down ideas.”

He was coaching at the youth level with the Dukes’ eighth-grade team and was planning on being a varsity assistant this year before plans changed and the head coaching job came open.

Shaner replaces Dave Smith, who stepped down last month after nine seasons leading the Dukes. The past six seasons, Dixon has gone 43-21 and made the playoffs all six years, including a quarterfinal trip in 2017.

Shaner does not expect things to be drastically different in the playbook.

“Our kids have been through a lot in the past four or five months, just with the timing of [Smith’s] resignation in mid to late June, we just felt the best opportunity for our kids was to keep things as consistent as possible,” Shaner said. “I think Week 1 when we’re at Byron, if people come and watch the games, you won’t see a whole lot different than you would have the last couple years.”

Shaner will remain as athletic director, filling a dual role that others in the area have filled in recent years including Rich Montgomery at Rock Falls, Mike Papoccia at Newman and Greg King at Sterling.

“I’m excited about it, but certainly know my athletic director duties need to have just as much time and effort,” he said.

He doesn’t get much of an offseason to prepare, with practices set to start in a few weeks.

“That’s certainly a challenge for us, is just the timing,” he said. “Obviously the positive for us is that this year is so unique. For the most part, teams haven’t been out doing things all summer like they typically would. We were just able to get workouts going here a few weeks ago. Nobody’s been doing seven-on-seven or linemen challenges, so that’s fortunate for us, but it still means everybody is going to be as full-speed forward as we’re allowed.”

Now entering his fifth school year as Dixon’s athletic director, tapping himself to lead the football program is just the third coaching hire he has had to make in a fairly stable period in the Dixon coaching ranks. His first coaching hire was to bring Ryan Deets in to lead the boys track and field team in 2017, and he followed that with naming Chris Harmann as boys basketball coach in 2018. All other current Dixon coaches were already in place when he came in during the summer of 2016.