Shann Schillinger’s dorm roommate his freshman year at the University of Montana would tell anybody who would listen.
“The kid from Baker, the fastest kid ever from the state of Montana,” former Griz defensive end Jace Palmer would say, followed by a jolly laugh that endears him to all, especially those who know him best.
“And he might be the nicest guy on the planet.”
How nice? Tim Hauck remembers coaching Schillinger during his early years at Montana.
“And this kid would apologize every single time I corrected him. And he was so nice, ‘Sorry, sir, sorry, sir’,” Hauck remembered some 15 years later with a chuckle.
“I would tell him, ‘Shann, if you ever apologize on the football field again…just run and keep running until I tell you to stop.
“Once he got past the over-thinking part and he just let himself play, it clicked. And BOOM, you have something so special.”
So special that Schillinger emerged from that 2005 recruiting class — the group with the unique distinction of having 15 Montanans sign that would eventually make it to their fifth seasons — among its most successful players.
Schillinger rose from “skinny, gangly kid from a tiny town near North Dakota”, as “Hitter” Hauck describes him, to a player who played an integral role in the Grizzlies winning 31 out of 32 Big Sky Conference games.
The two-time unanimous first-team All-Big Sky safety went from nearly undefeated during his legendary high school career (49-1) at Class B Baker and transformed into an NFL Draft pick by the Atlanta Falcons.
Because the love of the sport and the love of the Griz runs in his blood, Schillinger was the first of that famed class — the one featuring four Montanans who earned shots in the NFL — to return to his alma mater.
He joined Bob Stitt’s staff as the safeties coach in 2016, a position he retained when Bobby Hauck, Tim’s older brother, returned to lead UM ahead of the 2018 season.
Schillinger spent five seasons over six years at UM before leaving to take an analyst position on Mike Leach’s staff at Mississippi State of the SEC in the spring of 2022.
And now Schillinger is the first player of what is sure to be many from Hauck’s phenomenal Montana teams of the late 2000s to be inducted into the Montana Football Hall of Fame.
“He did so much for us at Montana, a guy who was one of the most important elements of our defense, a great leader, and a great player who really had his best year as a senior (in 2009),” said Tim Hauck, who coached safeties at his alma mater on his older brother’s staff from 2004 until 2007 before being hired at UCLA in 2008 and returning to the NFL in 2009 with the Tennessee Titans.
“But people really realized how great of a player he was when he had that awesome final year, went to the national championship game, and then goes on to play for five years in the NFL. Not bad for a skinny kid from a Class B school in Eastern Montana.”
Palmer, a Missoula Big Sky product who was a three-year starter at defensive end after coming to Montana as a safety turned outside linebacker, lived in Craig Hall with Schillinger.
That class, led by a decorated group of Montanans, formed a close bond, sharing dorm rooms and sharing 6 a.m. lifting sessions throughout their first fall on campus in Missoula.
The group frequently shared stories of their high school successes, whether it was Havre wide receiver Marc Mariani touting his Class A state title the previous year or Great Falls CMR inside linebacker turned defensive lineman Austin Mullins holding bragging rights over fellow Class AA Co-Defensive MVP Shawn Lebsock because Mullins’ Rustlers beat Lebsock’s Billings Skyview Falcons, the defending AA champions that fall, for the 2004 state title.
Schillinger had bragging rights over just about every single Class B player from his era or otherwise and a prep resume that measured up favorably against any of his new classmates.
During his four seasons starring for his uncle, Don Schillinger — whose 318 career victories are the second-most in Montana prep history, trailing only former legendary CMR head coach Jack Johnson — Shann was a two-way standout who helped carry his family name.
“In football circles in Montana, the last name Schillinger is well known,” Bobby Hauck said. “His dad, Jim is a great coach. His uncle Don might be the winningest coach in Montana high school history. For me growing up in Big Timber, I knew that last name.
“Because of the name, we knew who the kid was and knew the family. But he earned his own way because he was a great athlete and he did nothing but win.”
Growing up in Baker, Jace Schillinger remembers he and his brothers never feeling pressure to succeed in athletics but certainly feeling pressure to live up to the family name.
“All of us kids would agree, there was always pressure at school to do the right thing and to behave because when your uncle is the principle and your dad is a teacher and our dad coaches three sports and my uncle is the head football coach — and we knew about how successful of a coach he was, although now I look back and I see how much of an impact he really made — but it really came down for us kids always wanting to do right at school because of our last name,” Jace explained.
Don Schillinger helped guide Baker to a total of 262 wins (he also won 56 at Ekalaka) and six state championships (1986, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2007) plus a runner-up finish in 1996. His teams set a state record with 37 straight road wins from 1995 to 2003, a stat made even more impressive considering Baker is 49 miles from North Dakota and a world away from many Class B competitors. Baker saw a string of 62 consecutive conference wins between 1997 and the end of Don Schillinger’s final season at the helm in 2010.
“We went to practice every single day after school when I was little and watching your dad and your family and all the guys in town you looked up to, you just love it,” Shann Schillinger said. “You fall in love with it.
“Basketball was always my first love. I enjoyed football, but at a younger age, I felt I was a better basketball player. But there’s not many 6-foot basketball players who go to great heights” (laughs).
“But growing up in Baker, the community really supports football and every Friday night, everyone goes to the game. Being around it so closely, it was easy to fall in love with.”
The most successful stretch of Don Schillinger’s Hall of Fame run came with his nephew quarterbacking and captaining the Spartans. During Shann’s four years on varsity, he led Baker to an unbelievable streak of 49 wins in 50 games, including Class B championships in 2001, 2003 and 2004.
“When we recruited him, he was a tall, lanky kid and like a lot of us coming out of a Class B school, it was really hard to project how he would play at the FCS level,” said Tim Hauck, who was a standout at Big Timber before spending a season at Division III Pacific, leading to walking on at UM before former head coach Don Read’s first season in 1986.
“Shann was a success in every sport, he excelled in every sport, he almost literally never lost in high school. You just knew he was going to be successful.
“But you didn’t know how successful it was going to be. When it comes down to it, five years in the NFL, that’s pretty special for a guy from Baker, Montana.”
While that memorable freshmen class redshirted, the 2005 Griz went 5-2 in league play, 8-4 overall, losing 16-6 to Montana State for the third loss in four years to the Bobcats. The following week, the Griz lost 35-21 to Cal Poly in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
That marked the second time in three seasons under Bobby Hauck that the Griz had lost their final two games, each time losing to the ‘Cats in Bozeman (2003, 2005) and then again the following week in the first round of the playoffs.
Schillinger’s roommates, the coach Hauck brothers, his classmates and teammates: everyone could see how talented Schillinger was. The internal competitiveness of the group combined with the ultra-competitive environment for the Griz in the weight room, the locker room, the practice field and on game day accelerated the development the Class of 2005.
When it started to click, Schillinger’s ascension along with the rapid rise of Colt Anderson gave Montana lynchpins for a defense that would smother opponents over the next four years.
“We could look at one another and know what the other one was thinking,” Anderson, who played nine seasons in the NFL and is now a defensive assistant for the Cincinnati Bengals, said. “It was a lot of fun playing with Shann because I knew he was going to give everything he had and there was no question he was going to be in the right spot. He was smart, detailed and he was a lot of fun to play alongside.”
The Griz went 51-6 over the next four years, three of which Schillinger and Anderson, a former walk-on out of Butte, America who transformed into a three-time All-American, spearheaded a ferocious defense that remains one of the Big Sky’s best of this century.
“There would be times where we were be down, losing at Montana, but we had guys who had been in so many tough situations that scratched and clawed out of them, found ways to win and pretty soon you don’t accept losing as an answer,” Shann Schilllinger said.
“When you win, it’s contagious and when you surround yourself with a bunch of winners like I was fortunate enough to be around, the results are usually pretty good.
“Our expectation every time we took the field was to win.”
Internally, everyone knew that Palmer might be right: Schillinger might’ve been one of the Treasure State’s fastest exports. Externally, his smooth, understated, cerebral style was the perfect compliment to Anderson’s kamikaze fearlessness and ability to blow up ball carriers.
“They made it real easy for everybody else because they are both very smart guys, they can line everyone up, they knew where everyone was supposed to be and they played extremely fast,” Tim Hauck said. “If you wanted to keep up with them, play fast with them, you had to be a fast-thinking dude willing to play physical like they played.”
But make no mistake – Schillinger didn’t just run well. He would also bring the wood.
“Anybody that has ever met him will tell you he’s probably the nicest guy you will meet and he hasn’t waivered from Day 1, he is that guy, just so nice. So you meet him and you are like, ‘There’s no way this kid is a tough, physical football player,” Anderson said with a laugh.
“But then this guy straps it up and he’s as a tough a football player as I’ve ever played with. He isn’t scared to get dirty, put his nose in there and bang with anybody.”
Even with 257 tackles on his resume (still Top 25 in UM history), a pair of all-league nods, a pair of national championship game appearances (2008, 2009) and a pair of Tony Barbour Awards (given to the player “who best exemplifies outstanding practice habits and makes an unselfish contribution to the betterment of the Grizzly football team.”), outsiders still wondered what Schillinger’s football future might hold after his Griz career ended with a December loss in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the second year in a row.
Then the stopwatch flashed “4.49 seconds” and then “4.52 seconds” on UM’s Pro Day in the spring of 2010… And the vertical leap measured 37 inches… and the 200-pounder pumped out 21 bench press repetitions with 225 pounds on the bar…And Schillinger’s 40-yard dash compared with Mariani, an All-American receiver and returner.
“Heady player, knows the game, pretty smart, he’s not going to make any major mistakes, does that equal an NFL player? I don’t know. You probably have to do something a bit different than everyone else,” Jace Schillinger said.
“Then the 40 happened. And the Pro Day. Then he did things different than some others (laughs).”
Just a few months later, the kid from a tiny Eastern Montana town (Baker population in 2000: 1,695 people) was the 171st player picked in the 2010 NFL Draft.
“You don’t go play in the secondary in the NFL without being able to run. You just don’t. Every single one of those guys is fast,” Bobby Hauck said. “There’s nobody playing in the NFL in the secondary that isn’t fast.”
“Shann was a great track guy. He knew how to run. He ran and played hard. But he also had great instincts, great ball skills, wasn’t afraid to hit, saw the game. That’s what made him a total package at safety and an NFL Draft pick.”
Schillinger had already proven he could play. He had already proven he could win. Before he arrived in Atlanta, he was 100-7 during his team at Baker and UM between 2001 and 2009. That’s certainly as much winning as any Montanan has ever done, any classification or level of prep and college football.
The 6-foot-1, 205-pound safety had to find a way to fit into the NFL. So like Tim Hauck, fellow 2022 Montana Football Hall of Fame inductee Blaine McElmurry, and, more recently, Anderson had before him, Schillinger first made his name in the NFL on special teams.
Schillinger played for four seasons (2010-2013) for the Atlanta Falcons, twice ranking among the team leaders in special teams tackles. He also had an opportunity to form relationships with players from all around the country.
“When I was playing for the Falcons, some of my best friends, one dude was from Pittsburgh, Kansas, one of them was from a tough part of St Louis, another was from a tough part of the Bay Area,” Schillinger said. “And we realized we had a lot in common, at least when it came to football and life.
“From a small town to the big city, you surround yourself with good people and you’ll be successful. And there’s good people everywhere. That’s the one thing I learned from Baker to Missoula to Atlanta is there are good people everywhere.”
In the first game of the 2010 season when Schillinger was a rookie, the Falcons played the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Steel City. It’s a memory that is vivid to this day.
Schillinger reflected on that moment: “I remember going into the fourth quarter, the stadium erupted, Troy Polamalu intercepted Matt Ryan’s pass and I kind of looked around and thought, ‘Man, this really is unbelievable that I’m getting to experience this. That moment will always stick with me as my first NFL moment. Heinz Field, opening day, something I’ll never forget.”
Schillinger said the ability to connect with so many from all over was what led him back to the game. He played one game toward the end of the 2013 season with the Tennessee Titans before retiring as a player.
The following year in the fall of 2014, he joined the coaching staff at Dickinson State, where he reunited with his brother, Jace. Shann spent the 2015 season as a special teams assistant at Nebraska before returning to his alma mater ahead of the 2016 season.
“When I went to college, was in Coach Hauck’s system, I grew up from a boy to a man,” Schillinger said. “The structure, the accountability of being on time, he instilled that into me. My coaches, the way they coached me, they guided me.
“And that made me feel like I wanted to coach. I didn’t know what I would do when I first retired from the NFL. I’ve always thought about other things. But when you consider the ability and the impact my coaches had on me is something I could never give back but I always try to give back to that by doing it the best myself.”
From Class B to the University of Montana; from the Garden City to consecutive trips across the country to Chattanooga, Tennessee to play for the national championship; from a breakout pro day to the heart of the NFC South; from Stitt’s staff to Hauck’s; And now, to this new adventure in Starkville, Mississippi with his wife, Ericka, and their daughters Lennex and Malloy, Schillinger has left a positive impact wherever football has led him.
And that still doesn’t compare to the impact made on Schillinger by the game he loves, the game that has given him so much.
“The shared joy you get in football is something you cannot get in real life,” Schillinger said. “When you win a big game or share a big play and you celebrate with one another, that is a special feeling. And fortunately, you have shared misery, too. And when you lose tough games, the only people you want to be around are your close family and your guys you work with. The shared joy and the shared misery is contagious.
“It’s like nothing else. This game has given my family so much. Football is something I don’t know where my life would be without it.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and attributed. All Rights Reserved.
Montana safeties coach Shann Schillinger/ by Jason Bacaj 
Griz safeties coach Shann Schillinger demonstrates a drill during the third day of spring practice in Washington-Grizzly Stadium on March 9, 2018. 
Griz safety Josh Sandry keeps his eye on the ball as safeties coach Shann Schillinger prepares to start a drill during the third day of spring practice in Washington-Grizzly Stadium on March 9, 2018. 
Montana safeties coach Shann Schillinger/by Brooks Nuanez 
Montana safeties coach Shann Schillinger/ by Brooks Nuanez 
Montana secondary coach Shann Schillinger/ by Brooks Nuanez 
Former Montana safety Yamen Sanders and safeties coach Shann Schillinger/ by Brooks Nuanez
