David Rader (born March 9, 1957) is an

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

State Senator and former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach and player. He served as the head football coach at the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

from 1988 to 1999, compiling a record of 49–80–1.

Playing career

Rader graduated from

Will Rogers High School Will Rogers Middle and High School, located at 3909 E. 5th Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was built by Tulsa Public Schools in 1939 using WPA workers and designed by Joseph R. Koberling, Jr. and Leon B. Senter. It was named for the humorist Will Rog ...

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, then attended the

, from which he graduated with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

in 1978 after serving as the starting

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the Golden Hurricane in 1977 and 1978. Rader was an 11th round pick (295th overall) in the

1979 NFL Draft The 1979 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 3–4, 1979, at the Waldorf Astoria ...

by the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

and was later picked up by the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

Coaching career

Rader coached at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...

as the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2004 to 2006 under head coach

Mike Shula Mike Shula (born June 3, 1965) is an American football coach who is the senior offensive assistant coach for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL). A graduate of the University of Alabama, he was the school's head football coa ...

. On February 1, 2010, Rader was hired as the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the

Ole Miss Rebels football The Ole Miss Rebels football program represents the University of Mississippi, also known as "Ole Miss". The Rebels compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Western Division of ...

team after the departure of

Kent Austin Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. Ole Miss did not retain Rader for the 2011 season.

Political career

Rader was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate on November 8, 2016. He serves the 39th Senate District. Dave was first elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in November 2016 and re-elected in November 2020. He presently serves as Chair to the Senate Republican Caucus, as well as Vice Chair to the Appropriations Committee and Select Committee on Redistricting. He sits on the Finance Committee, Public Safety Committee, and Energy Committee. In addition, Dave is a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services. On January 6, 2021 Rader was selected to serve as the Senate Majority Caucus Chair.

Personal information

Rader is married to his wife, Janet, and with her has three children: sons Daniel and Jordan and daughter Kendal. In 1989 Rader was inducted into the Will Rogers High School Hall of Fame. Rader graduated with the class of 1975.Hall of Fame Inductees
In the fall of 2011, Rader published his first book, "Missing Page from the Playbook: Fundamentals Behind the Physical, Mental and Emotional Elements of Commitment". Rader has 5 grandchildren.

Head coaching record

* Fired after seven games in 1999

References

External links

David Rader at NFL.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rader, Dave 1957 births Living people American football quarterbacks Alabama Crimson Tide football coaches Mississippi State Bulldogs football coaches New York Giants players Ole Miss Rebels football coaches Tulsa Golden Hurricane football coaches Tulsa Golden Hurricane football players Players of American football from Wichita, Kansas Sportspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma Players of American football from Oklahoma Republican Party Oklahoma state senators 21st-century American politicians