Profile · Oak Creek, Wisconsin
Brian Calhoun
Atlanta-born, Oak Creek-raised running back; Wisconsin Badgers star; Detroit Lions draft pick; Oak Creek High head football coach
$2 million
Brian Calhoun remains the name written deepest in Oak Creek's football record book, and he has come home to coach the same halls he walked as a teenager. Born in Atlanta on May 8, 1984, and raised in Oak Creek, he finished the class of 2002 with 4,790 career rushing yards and 82 touchdowns, including a 295-yard, seven-touchdown afternoon and a senior year of 40 scores and 2,095 yards. He was Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year. Away from the field he edited the high-school sports page, won drum competitions over six years, and placed seventh in the long jump at the 2001 World Youth Championships in Budapest. Two seasons at Colorado and a transfer sit-out led to a 2005 Wisconsin Badgers year of 1,636 rushing yards and 22 rushing touchdowns, then a school record, plus 571 receiving yards. The Detroit Lions took him seventy-fourth overall in 2006. An ACL injury limited him to eleven NFL games. He returned to Oak Creek as running-backs coach in 2018 and was named head football coach in 2024. "I grew up in this community," he told CBS 58 when the school hired him. "I walked the halls." Atlanta is on the birth certificate; the hometown claim is the Oak Creek program that still owns his records and now employs him.