Once Liam Kirwan and Marian Central decided to part ways recently, one of the first calls the football coach made was to Dirk Stanger.

Kirwan, Marian’s head coach since 2022, had named Stanger his offensive coordinator over the winter. Both are Marian graduates.

Said Kirwan: “I told him, ‘I hope they offer this opportunity to you. Let’s keep this thing going in the right direction and keep building this program to where we want it to be.’ ”

Last week, via X, new Marian athletic director Lafeyette Bell welcomed Stanger as the Hurricanes’ new head coach, handing over the program to the 1993 Marian graduate. Before serving 10 seasons, including a three-year run as head coach that ended after the 2024 season, at Crystal Lake Central, Stanger was Marian coach Ed Brucker’s offensive coordinator for 12 years.

“Super excited at the opportunity,” Stanger said of returning to Marian. “It’s been 10-plus years since I’ve been at the school, so a lot of things have changed. I’m even more excited about Coach Bell’s vision for the athletic department and what he sees that Marian can become.”

Kirwan, who graduated from Marian in 2013, posted two four-win seasons and two three-win seasons. As a student-athlete at Marian, he played mainly defensive end and some offensive line, before playing college ball at St. Cloud State and Loras.

Stanger was his offensive coordinator at Marian.

“I loved playing for him,” Kirwan said. “He’s part of the reason why I got into coaching, because of the positive impact he had on me. We hired him as our OC this winter, and I was excited to work and coach with him.”

Stanger’s three-year run at CL Central included a Class 6A playoff berth in 2023. For the first time in 20-plus years, he did not coach in 2025.

“It was awkward,” said Stanger, who works full-time for the athletic recruiting company Next College Student Athlete, which is part of IMG Academy. “I would sit in my driveway [in Lakewood], make a fire. I could hear stadium noise from a couple of near-by high schools [Crystal Lake South, Crystal Lake Central]. I just tried to take a step back and look at things in a different lens. It was good for me in the long run.”

Stanger said what helped sell him on returning to coaching was a conversation with David Proffitt, who had a successful 12-year run as Marian’s coach before Brucker and later served as head coach at Lake Zurich. Proffitt has coached for Prairie Ridge in recent years.

“He said the best thing he ever did — and for him it was probably 25 years ago — was taking a year off,“ Stanger said. ”He was like, ‘It really opened my eyes. You look at the game differently, things like that.’ [Not coaching last season] did me some good, for sure.”

Marian Central’s players, particularly the seniors, also sold Stanger. He’s gotten to know them the past few months.

Stanger played quarterback for Marian and the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of a Rose Bowl-winning team. He inherits a promising QB in Colin Hernon, who started last season and, at 6 feet 4 and 195 pounds, could be one of the area’s best at his position this fall.

Passing the ball won’t necessarily be the Hurricanes’ identity, however.

“I’m a believer that you got to run it just as well as you can throw it,” Stanger said. “Year to year, as a high school coach, your personnel may change, so you got to adapt.”

Kirwan also served as associate director of admissions and advancement at Marian. He said he wasn’t expecting to leave Woodstock’s Catholic high school, but he is grateful for the opportunity he had to coach his alma mater.

“It was a special four years for me, coming back home,” Kirwan said. “I can’t thank the community enough. The amount of text messages and calls I’ve gotten over the last few days since everything came out, the amount of support, it’s hard for me to put into words how thankful I am for all of these people.”

Marian unveiled a new weight room last year, and Kirwan was a part of the process that saw it come to fruition. He saw growth in the program in his time as head coach.

“I was lucky to leave a positive mark on a lot of families, a lot of students, whether they were athletes or regular students,” Kirwan said. “We made some huge improvements to that school, whether it was building the new weight room or putting in some more structure in the football program and athletics to help us grow and succeed over the years.”