When Mike Kohl was a college football and basketball player at Millikin University roughly three decades ago, he realized his dream job would be returning to his high school alma mater, Bradley-Bourbonnais, as the school’s football coach.

Now, as his two oldest sons have become college athletes themselves – one a football and basketball player at Millikin just like dad – Kohl’s ready to move on from one dream to the next.

Kohl confirmed to the Daily Journal on Tuesday evening that he had resigned after 15 years as head coach of the Boilermakers. He will continue serving in the athletic director role he’s held since the middle of the 2019-20 school year.

As a father of six children, Kohl said that where his kids are in life and being able to be a more present father was the driving factor behind leaving his dream job behind.

“It felt like the right time to take a deep breath and take a step back. ...” Kohl said. “It’s definitely not an easy decision, but something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

“To do this job right, you have to be there for 12 months of the year, and June and July are heavy months. My oldest daughter (Payton, a senior at Illinois State) will be home for maybe the last time this summer, so I want to put my foot down, be with family and not miss any of my kids’ games if I don’t have to.”

Athletics are a family affair for all of Kohl’s children.

Payton played volleyball for the Boilers, where she graduated in 2021, and at Kankakee Community College. Ethan, a 2024 Bradley-Bourbonnais graduate, was the 2023 Daily Journal Football Player of the Year and recently transferred locally to Olivet Nazarene University after spending the first two years of his college quarterback career at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri.

Gavin, who also quarterbacked the Boilers for his dad, is a 2025 Bradley-Bourbonnais graduate following in his father’s footsteps as a two-sport athlete at Millikin. Daughter Emerson is a freshman at Bradley-Bourbonnais and part of the volleyball program. Seventh-grade son Griffin is a future Boilers football player, as is first-grader Paxton.

While perhaps his proudest accomplishment as the Boilers coach is the family-like environment he’s created in the program, it’s his own family that requires the lion’s share of his attention – though they also may be keeping him slightly connected to the world of coaching.

“When you care about the program so much, played there, you feel really good about taking that deep breath, letting go and having a different perspective [as a parent],” Kohl said. “I’ll still be coaching [Paxton] in 8-year-old baseball, and I’ll coach high school football again someday in a different avenue, a different way. It won’t be as a head coach, but I love Friday nights, love the community and love the program.”

A 1993 Bradley-Bourbonnais graduate, Kohl was the quarterback for the Boilers during the 1991 and ‘92 seasons, a two-year span in which they went 20-2 while he rewrote the school’s passing records, his twin brother Mark rewrote the receiving records and future University of Southern California running back Conrad Coleman rewrote the rushing records.

Several of those records have since been broken, including Ethan breaking almost every single-season and career passing record at the school. Over Kohl’s 15 years as head coach, the Boilers accumulated a 100-62 record. They made the playoffs nine times, a program-record five-year streak from 2012-2016 and a current four-year streak. His 61.7% win percentage is the fourth-best in program history and best among all coaches to hold the position for more than three seasons.

But it’s the wins not included in that record that mean the most for a man who’s been a player, assistant coach or head coach for the program for a combined 30 seasons.

“Probably the thing I’m most proud of with our program are the things that we’ve done off the field, in the community and in our school,” Kohl said, “not necessarily the wins on the scoreboard.”

As athletic director, Kohl said the job was posted for in-district applicants, where he estimates there to be “about 15 people” who could be quality applicants, before the job will be posted for out-of-district applicants in the near future. Kohl will work with a hiring committee to determine the school’s next coach.