With the nickname "Big Jim" and listed at 6'-2" and 244 lbs, Schrader played in 116 NFL games, starting 48 of them.

After graduating from Scott Township High School in Carnegie, PA, he went on to the University of Notre Dame, where he played under head coach Frank Leahy who was the former line coach for the Seven Blocks of Granite and played shoulder-to-shoulder with Tackle Art Hunter Guard Menil Mavraides, and Fullback Neil Worden as the main blockers for Heisman Trophy winning running back Johnny Lattner.

His Senior year, the 1953 Notre Dame finished the season 9–1, and had an unprecedented 12 players drafted to '54 NFL.

Before the start of the 1954 NFL season, Schrader, joined four of his Fighting Irish classmates, in the 1954 summer classic College All-Star Game, where they lost 31–6 to the Detroit Lions in front of 93,000 fans.

[3] This biographical article relating to an American football offensive lineman born in the 1930s is a stub.