By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DAYTON, Ore.– It wasn’t too long ago that Kiegan Schaan was playing on the gridiron.
Back in the late 2010’s, Schaan was a prep start at Cascade Christian, graduating from the school in 2020 before taking his talents on the football field to George Fox University.
In his five seasons at GFU, as a safety, Schaan compiled 222 total tackles and five interceptions over his career. His final season was in 2024 as he finished as a three-time NWC First Teamer.
And it wasn’t long after he hung up his cleats, that he went into coaching. Last year he joined the Dayton Pirate coaching staff under Jacob Peterson, helping the program reach the 3A State Playoffs before falling to Douglas in the opening round.
Fast forward to June 10, 2026. He was wrapping up his first series of Spring Football practices as Head Coach of Dayton.
For Schaan, he credits last year in helping him get familiarized with the culture at Dayton and allowing him to build those relationships with the kids entering this season.
“It was an easy transition, not coming into somewhere new,” Schaan starts. “Getting to know all about them, about the culture at Dayton. About how these kids are wired, their experiences and being here, growing up here. It’s been awesome and a lot of great kids, a lot of great athletes. A lot of loyal guys who are really bought in. Great young dudes, so I’m really excited and I’m really fortunate to be with this group.”
Schaan has seen growth with the team already during these handful of Spring Practices as they begin to install what this new coaching staff is envisioning them doing come September. The plan is to stick to the Dayton identity of being smash mouth, but add in different wrinkles with what they do. Imposing their will on team’s as they had in the past.
“The kids are picking it up amazingly, they’re doing a great job. Like I was telling them last night, we’re all at the same level. Just because you’ve been in the program for three years, it’s on ground zero with what we know about offense and defense,” said Schaan. “So just utilizing the time to get in as many reps as we can, fail as much as we can fail, correct our mistakes and get up and get another rep in and move on to the next play.”
“Establishing that identity is huge in something that we’re continuing to work on and the kids already have it instilled in them because of Peterson and because of the system they’ve been in.”
The Dayton Football team’s first game of the year will be on September 4 against Salem Academy.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
