Dante Culbreath is back in the game.
Two years after stepping down following a successful run as Simeon’s football coach, Culbreath has returned to the sideline at Bloom, where he’s the Blazing Trojans’ third full-time head coach in four seasons. (Assistants coached the final six games of 2024 after Kaseem Sinceno’s departure.)
Culbreath works in the district as a counselor at Bloom Trail and seemed like an easy choice to try to revive a program that has just one IHSA playoff appearance since 2014.
“It’s not very often you’ve got experience sitting there [in the district],” Bloom athletic director Joe Reda said. “He wanted to work with our kids. It was a great scenario.”
Culbreath said when he left Simeon that he wanted to spend more time following his daughter’s high school volleyball career. When Bloom officials approached him about the football job, he felt the timing was right to coach again.
“I had already got my daughter to her junior year, and she was OK with me getting back out here as long as I make [her] game,” Culbreath said.
That’s what he needed to hear, because football was calling.
“I missed the preparation — the preparation for games and being able to pour into some youth,” he said. “I missed that part of it.”
Culbreath knew little but success at Simeon, his alma mater, which has long been one of the Public League’s dominant programs. He went 114-37 in 13 seasons with a trip to the state semifinals in 2014, the quarterfinals in 2010 and 2018 and a Prep Bowl title in 2017.
The Bloom hiring process dragged into July before Culbreath officially took over a team that didn’t have the usual offseason program of weightlifting and conditioning — and that’s not the only way things aren’t quite the same. The Blazing Trojans are one of a handful of athletic programs around the area — Morton and Leyden are others — that bring athletes together from two separate high schools. That creates logistical issues that other teams don’t have to deal with.
“[Dealing with] the two campuses is more challenging than people realize,” Reda said. “You need kids who are intrinsically motivated. They have to want to get better.”
An extra campus means extra moving parts, literally.
“It’s tough,” Culbreath said, “because a team is one [unit]. [But] you’ve got two campuses, [including] kids from Trail. They’ve got to get bussed over here. And it’s about getting over here, changing, getting out on the field. I can say, ‘Be on the field at 3:15.’ But if the bus ain’t here, guess what? They ain’t gonna be on the field at 3:15.
“It’s about trying to jell those guys together and letting them know they are one team.”
Building that cohesiveness is harder when players only see each other after school at practice. And winning games is harder when the roster is made up mostly of juniors and sophomores, as Bloom’s is this fall.
But for all the challenges, there are signs of hope. Bloom is 3-2 with wins over Gage Park, Argo and Thornridge, along with losses to Coal City and Rich. Culbreath and Reda like the Blazing Trojans’ effort.
“These kids are giving me everything they’ve got,” Culbreath said.
The lack of offseason work is evident against the better opponents on the schedule. But that can be fixed.
“They just don’t [have anything] in the tank to close out big games [against] tough, physical teams,” Culbreath said.
Said Reda: “I’m seeing great discipline. Win or lose, the kids are working hard. They’re making less mistakes. Our expectation is growth. [Culbreath is] growing the program in leaps and bounds already.”