Texas Tech University Athletics
Leach Names Sadler Assistant Coach
March 07, 2003 | Football
March 7, 2003
LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach filled the final void in his coaching staff with the hiring of Charlie Sadler today as assistant coach. Sadler will coach on the defensive side of the ball.
Sadler comes to the South Plains after spending the last three football seasons in the high school ranks at a pair of Austin high schools, Akins High School (2000) and Lake Travis High School (2001-02). He was the defensive coordinator for a season at AHS, before assuming head coaching duties and serving as department chair for health and physical education at LTHS.
His most recent collegiate coaching experience came as head coach at Northern Illinois University (1991-95), where he coached the nation's leading rusher in LeShon Johnson in 1993.
Sadler began coaching at his alma mater, R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton, Texas, as an assistant coach from 1972-1975. He moved on to Lamar Consolidated in Rosenberg, Texas, in 1975, where he served as defensive coordinator for three seasons.
Former University of Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer offered Sadler his first collegiate coaching position as an assistant offensive line coach in 1978. Sadler moved within the Big Eight Conference the following season to Iowa State, where he was the defensive line coach under former Cyclone coach and current Big 12 Conference Senior Associate Commissioner Donnie Duncan. Sadler coached in Ames for four seasons, before spending a season at the University of Missouri as outside linebacker coach in 1983.
Sadler returned to Oklahoma as defensive line coach under Switzer from 1984-88 and moved to defensive coordinator under Gary Gibbs during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. During Oklahoma's 1985 national championship season, Sadler coached 1985 Lombardi Award winner Tony Casillas.
Sadler was a three-year letterwinner and all-state linebacker at R.L. Turner High School and helped lead RTLHS to the state semifinals in 1966. He played freshman football at Oklahoma under head coach Chuck Fairbanks in 1967, before lettering for two seasons at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla.
Sadler earned his bachelor's degree in education from NSU in 1971 and received a master's degree in education from the University of Arkansas in 1972.
