When Phillip Rivers retires from the NFL, he will have a new job waiting for him. On Friday, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback accepted the head coaching job at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama, pending his NFL career coming to an end. According to Ben Thomas of Alabama.com, the school’s athletic director will serve as the interim football coach until Rivers is set to take over.
“My dad was my high school football coach, so I want to coach my boys and I want to coach young boys down the road, so I do know what’s next when my playing time’s over, so we did talk about it a little bit,” Rivers said, who played under his father when he was in high school. “I think really where we settled in was: I still love to play. Certainly not coming off my best year, but in a year where I still know I can play at a high level. I did it in spurts. I just didn’t do it consistently enough. And I love it, and, shoot, it was one of those deals where we said, ‘Well, if there’s nothing else out there, then that’ll be our answer.’ We kind of said, ‘Whatever God wants, so if there’s nothing out there, I don’t want to just try to hang on to play. If nothing’s out there, shoot, we’ll start coaching.’”
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Rivers played high school football at Athens High School in Athens, Alabama. In his senior season, Rivers emerged as one of the top players in the state, which led to him getting attention from a number of colleges. However, NC State was one of the few schools that looked at him as a quarterback. Rivers joined the Wolfpack in 2000 and became one of the top signal-callers in the country in 2003, being named ACC Player of the Year and Offensive Players of the Year.
Rivers went on to be drafted No. 4 overall by the New York Giants in 2004 but was traded the San Diego Chargers for Eli Manning. In his 16 seasons with the Chargers, Rivers was named to the Pro Bowl eight times and he was named Comeback Player of the Year in 2013. In March, Rivers signed a one-year $25 million contract with the Colts. In his career, Rivers has thrown for 49,271 yards and 397 touchdowns.
