Cedar Rapids Xavier Coach Duane Schulte never wanted to talk about injuries or medical problems during the 2012 high school football season, fearing it might jinx his team.

That code of silence included his own medical issue.

Schulte, 51, had full hip-replacement surgery on Monday, Nov. 19, just three days after the Saints played Ankeny for the Class 4A state title in the UNI-Dome.

"That weekend was a whirlwind," he said Monday at school.

Schulte kept his ailment as quiet as possible during the season as the Saints reeled off 13 straight victories on their path to the finals. Some people knew he was ailing, but not many.

He originally picked two dates for the surgery, either Nov. 5 or Nov. 19, depending on how Xavier did in the playoffs. The team kept winning, so Schulte kept dealing with the pain for a few more weeks.

He wanted to have the surgery as quickly as possible, but was determined to finish the season with his team. "You talk to your players all the time about sucking it up," he noted.

He practiced what he preached.

"I wanted to get back to healing as soon as possible. If we had gotten beat the first, second or third round, I wanted to have the surgery immediately," he said.

They kept winning, so he kept waiting. He popped some Aleve and dealt with the discomfort as best he could.

"Some days were better than others," he acknowledged.

Schulte had cortisone shots in May and July to help relieve the pain, but knew the only way to solve the problem was with an operation.

Schulte's brother, Kary, is an orthopedic surgeon in Des Moines and guided him through the entire process, although another doctor performed the operation.

The state finals against Ankeny ended about 10 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 16. Schulte and his wife, Sherry, left for Des Moines at 4 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 19. They arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m. and he had the surgery at 11:30.

Schulte stayed in the hospital Monday night and Tuesday night, then returned home to Cedar Rapids on Wednesday.

He returned to work at Xavier High School last Thursday, even though his doctor had advised him to wait until after Christmas. In addition to coaching football and freshman basketball, he teaches law, economics and American government and wanted to get ready for finals this week.

Schulte used a single crutch to get around school Monday afternoon and is looking forward to the time when he can start exercising again and "getting a lather up" on a regular basis. He likes to run or ride a stationary bike, but will have to wait a while.

"Anybody who knows me knows I have to get a lather every day," he said. "To not have one for a month is driving me crazy."

Schulte said the problem with his right hip cannot be traced to a specific sports injury. "Anybody can get it," he said. "It just depends on genetics almost more than anything else."

He said the problem area was between the pelvic bone and the top of the femur bone on his right side. The cartilage between the two bones had worn away, removing the cushion and causing pain.

"The next thing you know, you have bone rubbing on bone, so that's the pain," he said.

He said his doctor "scraped out" the inflammatory material on his pelvis, attached a metal piece, then attached a plastic piece to act as a new cushion. "Then they chop off the top ball of your femur and run a metal spike in there," he said.

They take a ceramic ball and screw in onto the metal spike, and the ceramic ball rubs gently against the new piece of plastic, rather than having bone on bone.

"That's a total hip replacement," Schulte said after diagramming the play with his hands. "I had to do research too, to be honest with you.

"I've got X-rays of it. It's amazing."

Schulte has had a series of other operations over the years. He's had ACL surgery on both knees and arthroscopic surgery on both knees, ailments traced to basketball.

Schulte thanked the Xavier High School community, his assistant coaches and his family for helping him through the ordeal with his bad hip. He said he has a terrific support system at home with his wife and four children -- Reggie, Bryce, Quinn and Hope.

Hope, a fourth grader, was ready when her father returned home from the hospital. She made special arrangements in the downstairs of their home, putting a bell on a table next to his recliner.

"She said, 'Dad, if you ever need anything, ring the bell and I'll come be your servant,'" he said with a smile. "So that's what I did."

The football season has been over for a month, but the Saints still have not held their awards ceremony from an award-winning campaign.

"Usually you have your awards ceremony as soon as the season ends," said Schulte. "But 48 hours after the season ended I had my femur sawed off. So having an awards ceremony wasn't high on my priority list."

Schulte has talked to friends and other people who have had hip-replacement surgery. They assure him he did the right thing.

"Everyone says six months from now you'll be happy you did it, you'll feel so much better, you won't have that pain you used to have," he said. "That kind of made it worthwhile."