Coach May was a great athlete out of South Shore High School in Chicago. He played D1 / P5 college ball at Purdue University as a Tight End. After college, he continued his football career with the Joliet Fire in the Northern States football league in 1978 averaging 19.6 yards per reception and 9 touchdowns over the course of the season. Riding this impressive season, he later made all league with the Chicago lions in the Northern States league and later in 1982 would be picked up by the Dallas Cowboys where he played for Tom Landry. Coach May would play for a number of coaching greats, such George Allen and Marv Levy with the Chicago Blitz, Chuck Fairbanks and Walt Michaels with the New Jersey Generals, and Lee Corso with the Orlando Renegades. Time well spent and lessons he put to use while playing in the Chicagoland Football league. As a part of the DuPage eagles, Coach May would see the championships two years in a row, in 1989 and 1990 and pick up the AFA All American award and the Offensive MVP Award. And the years before these, he would take another run at the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings from 1987 through 1988.
With a wealth of playing experience, it is no surprise that Coach May would later transition into coaching. First with the Chicago Thunder in the Chicagoland Football League taking them to the championship games in 1996 and 1997 winning the coach of the year and then head coach of the year between the two championship runs respectively. He’d later go on to own and coach the Chicago Mavericks and eventually work as commissioner of the Midwest Football League before taking his talents into coaching youth sports. May coached at St Joseph’s High School from 2007-2009. And then at St. Laurence high school from 2012 through 2018 helping to mold many of the young players who passed through those halls into smart athletes who not only knew the what and the how to do what they were doing but the why allowing them to continue their skills and push them to the next level as many went on to play in college and some into the pros themselves. Most recently he has coached at De La Salle high school coaching with the Varsity football team from 2019 through 2022.
With his lengthy track record as a player and as a coach, May has shown an undying love for the game and for his past teammates, coaches, and then fellow coaching staff and players. He approaches each season and each player with the concept of meeting them where they are rather than simply demanding or expecting. He has always led with the idea of building confidence and teaching before simply winning games or misusing talent. More than anything as a player, May strove to be a little better than he was the day before, and even now he instills that virtue into the teams that he coaches. He is a cultivator of young men, a stout lover of the game, and a treasure to the world of football. This is the experience that Coach May brings to Midwest Prep.
