As Ivan Schrodt descended the stairs towards Jack and Pat Bush Stadium, home of the St. Ambrose Fighting Bees, he chuckled at the irony of his photo being taken on a football field.
“I’m not a sport enthusiast,” the Notre Dame graduate declared. “I don’t understand sports. I didn’t get that gene.”
This moment brought him back to the conversation he first had with St. Ambrose University about funding a summer program for football players.
“When it first came up, it didn’t trip my interest,” Schrodt recalled. “They made the pitch that football is what attracts some students to go to the college, and a lot of them, oftentimes, had a hard time transitioning to college.”
Difficulty acclimating to the demands of college life? That's something he wholeheartedly understands.
“I had a tough transition,” Schrodt reflected. “I really struggled, and fortunately there was support there, people that came in and coached me and helped me learn how to study.”
An engineering major, Schrodt found his first semester of college difficult. Not for a lack of work ethic, but a lack of experience in study skills and time management.
“That part of it struck me,” Schrodt said of the St. Ambrose University Football Summer Bridge program. “Not the athletics part but that transition to college. It can be a struggle whether you’re a sports person or somebody like me that was too lazy to study in high school.”
Football Summer Bridge
Summer 2025 marked the second year of the Bridge program. Led by the Student Success Center in collaboration with SAU football, incoming recruits move to campus a month early to get a jumpstart as they acclimate to college life.
“The biggest goal is to get all of these young men here and integrated with St. Ambrose University,” said Vince Fillipp ’09, ’11 MOL, head coach. “Not just from a football standpoint but trying to connect these students to all of the resources here on campus.”
Every day is structured. For four weeks, the students eat their meals together, practice together, lift weights together, study together, and are enrolled in a three-credit course, which counts toward their degree completion. During the course, students learn practical skills they’ll carry into their first semester of college – annotating, note-taking, studying, and time management.
“I would not be where I am today without this program,” reflected Tatum Roselle ’28. “The first semester was tough. If I didn’t have the opportunity I had to come here early and get acclimated, everything would have been a lot harder.”
Roselle participated in the inaugural Bridge program in 2024. This past summer, he participated as a skills tutor.
Sunday through Thursday, skills tutors run study rooms. This serves as an onboarding for the larger study rooms students take part in once the academic year is underway. St. Ambrose football has partnered with the Student Success Center for a handful of years to have dedicated study times for the team. According to the Student Success Center, this partnership, and the Bridge program, has significantly improved GPAs across the team and increased eligibility.
Giving with intention
The program is free for students thanks to Schrodt and his wife Mary’s generosity. An engineer and businessman for morethan 40 years, Schrodt owned three companies before retiring in 2015.
“I’ve had a blessed life,” he reflected. “It’s a privilege that I have gotten to the point in my life where I can do a little bit of charitable giving.”
For the Schrodts, it was important to see the impact of their generosity. Over the years, they’ve carefully selected the programs and scholarships they’ve funded, looking for opportunities to make a meaningful impact on individuals’ lives.
“When my wife and I were first talking about charitable giving, one of the things we talked about was we wanted to go where there was program success. Where you could see that the money was being used,” Schrodt said.
The Schrodts have helped fund an at-risk youth program in Wisconsin, assisted a Kentucky High School in setting up a foundation, and established a scholarship at a technical college in Kentucky. Their involvement at SAU began in 2022. They are now seeing the tangible results of their generosity.
Set up for success
In fall 2026, the Schrodts received letters from students who completed the Bridge program, sharing its impact on their success.
“A lot of them wrote to us that they didn’t think they would have made it without the summer program. That’s what was important to them,” Schrodt reflected. “That struck me because they didn’t talk about the sport. It was about college, and that’s what’s important.”
At the end of the program, students have built relationships with support staff and teammates. They are prepared for the demands ahead of them as they move into a full-time course load and demanding football schedule. They are empowered to thrive in the classroom and on the field.
“A number of them talked about developing relationships with people they're working with to succeed, to help them get over hurdles,” Schrodt said. “It was not only those technical skills that a person needs but also starting those relationships. The program has been successful on both levels.”
“Our student-athletes can only reach their full potential – on the field, in the classroom, and as a person – when they feel comfortable in their environment,” Coach Fillipp said. “Whatever our guys could possibly need – mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally – there is somebody here specifically for them at St. Ambrose. Connecting them to those resources, that’s the whole goal of this program.”
