Wisconsin Football Coaches Association

James was born in Madison, Wisconsin on March 6 1945 to Walter and Edna Schara. He
graduated from Middleton High School in 1963. While attending high school he lettered 4
years in track two years each in basketball and football.

ln 1967 Sahara graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelors degree in
physical education. In the fall of 1967 he accepted teaching position at Southern Door High
School teaching physical education along with coaching football and track.

In 1969 he moved to Homestead High School to teach physical education and assistant
coaching gymnastics and boys track. Jim married Sandy Parman in August of ’69.They
celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary recently and have two sons, Trevor (Kathleen) and
Tyler (Jessica) and a grandson, Sylas plus another grand child expected this January.

In the fall of 1970 he began 37 years of coaching freshman football at Homestead until 2005. He took three years off of coach to have knee and hip replacement surgeries. He returned to   coach another ten years as a varsity defensive line coach.

He feels extremely lucky to have been associated with many special coaches thru the years.
His high school coach was Otto Breitenbach who he deeply respected as a teacher, coach,
and person. His two years at Southern Door Schara was able to work with Al Brietlow. His experience at Homestead was a time of growth as a coach by working with Head coaches John Brodie and Dave Keel. Plus many other assistants particularly Tom Fugate and Dave Hoagland.

He was a freshman coach during Homestead’s first state championship in 1999. After
returning to coaching 2009 he was a member of varsity coaching staff for the 2012, 2015 and
2018 State Championships.