By Kevin Askeland
MaxPreps.com
Massillon, Ohio, the hometown of legendary football coach Paul Brown, was in the news earlier this month when Massillon High School completed a $6 million indoor practice facility on its campus.
The indoor facility is larger than the fields use by both the NFL teams in Ohio, the Cleveland Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals. Because the facility is at Washington High School in Massillon, where Brown began his coaching career, it got us to thinking. What other legendary coaches started their coaching careers at the high school level.?
Not surprisingly, many of the best coaches in football and basketball, college and pro, went straight from college to being an assistant at the college level with no high school experience. Likewise in baseball, most managers got their start as minor league managers rather than as high school coaches.
However, it shouldn't come as any surprise that some of the best coaches to ever guide a football or basketball team were also great coaches at the high school level. Here’s a look at this week’s Top 10 List.
10. Roy Williams – Charles D. Owen High School
Elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007, Williams won an NCAA title with North Carolina in 2005 after spending 15 years as the head coach at Kansas. He reached 500 career wins faster than any coach in NCAA history and his Tar Heels began the 2008-09 season as the No. 1 team in the country. Williams began his coaching career at Charles D. Owen High School in Swannanoa, N.C., where he was the basketball coach, golf coach and athletic director. He coached at Owen for five seasons starting in 1973. He left Owen to be an assistant for Dean Smith at North Carolina.
9. Mike Holmgren – Lincoln, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Oak Grove
Holmgren has had many stops along his coaching career. After graduating from USC, Holmgren returned to coach at his alma mater, Lincoln of San Francisco, before moving on to Sacred Heart Cathedral and eventually Oak Grove of San Jose from 1975-80. From there, Holmgren assisted at San Francisco State, Brigham Young and ultimately with the San Francisco 49ers. He won the head coaching position at Green Bay in 1992, leading the Packers to a Super Bowl championship in 1996. He joined the Seattle Seahawks as head coach in 1999. While Holmgren was at Oak Grove, the Eagles won Mount Hamilton League championships in 1978 and 1979.
8. Bill Walsh – Washington Fremont
The coach of three Super Bowl champions with the San Francisco 49ers, Walsh didn’t get the chance to coach in the NFL until he was 47 years old. He was an assistant at San Diego, Cincinnati, and Oakland in the NFL and a head coach at Stanford. He also assisted at the college level at Cal at San Jose State. Walsh coached for three seasons at Washington High School in Fremont, Calif. There he developed many of his innovative ideas that eventually evolved into the “West Coast Offense” that he became known for. Walsh took a team that hadn’t won a league game in three years to a conference title by the second year. He left Washington to join Marv Levy as an assistant at Cal-Berkeley.
7. Jim Calhoun - Dedham High School
Calhoun has been an NCAA head basketball coach for 33 years, coaching at Northeastern from 1972 to 1986 and at Connecticut since 1986. In that time, Calhoun has won a pair of NCAA championships (1999 and 2004). He ranks as one of the all-time winningest coaches in NCAA history with 773 wins entering the 2008-09 season. Calhoun coached at several high schools in the 1960s, including Lyme-Old Lyme of Conn., and Westport of Mass. He eventually accepted a job at Dedham High School and led the team to a 20-1 record in 1971. From there, he became an assistant and eventual head coach, at Northeastern in Boston.
6. Red Auerbach – St. Alban’s, Roosevelt
Auerbach established himself as the NBA’s top coach during the 1950s and 1960s, leading the Boston Celtics to nine NBA championships between 1957 and 1966. He also retired as the NBA’s all-time winningest coach with 938 victories in 20 years. Auerbach got his start at the high school level, however, coaching at Roosevelt High School and St. Alban’s High School in Washington D.C. His teams made the playoffs all three seasons he coached, one at St. Alban’s and two at Roosevelt. According to the Auerbach biography “Let Me Tell You a Story,” Auerbach’s teams were undefeated in league play his first year and lost just once his second year.
5. Lute Olsen - Mahnomen, Two Harbors, Loara, Marina
Olsen recently stepped down as head coach of the Arizona Wildcats. He posted a 589-188 record with an NCAA championship in 1997. Olsen spent almost 14 years at the high school level, coaching at Mahnomen (1956-57) and Two Harbors (1957-61) in Minnesota before moving to Anaheim, Calif., and coaching at Loara (1963-64) and Marina of Huntington Beach (1964-69). Olsen compiled a 180-76 record during his career as a high school basketball coach.
4. Woody Hayes - New Philadelphia
Hayes had a long and successful career at Ohio State, winning 205 games with the Buckeyes between 1951 and 1978 along with five national championships. Hayes got his start as a head football coach at New Philadelphia High School in Ohio. After assisting on a pair of teams that went 18-2, Hayes was named head coach in 1938 and went 18-1-1 the next two years, including a 10-0 season in 1939. Depleted by the impending war in 1940, Hayes’ team went 1-9. He joined the navy in 1941 and eventually went on to coach at Denison University, Miami (Ohio) University and Ohio State.
3. Vince Lombardi – St. Cecilia’s
Lombardi served just 10 seasons as a head coach in the NFL, nine of them with the Green Bay Packers, but he “packed” a lot of success into those 10 seasons. Lombardi had a career record of 96-34-6 in the NFL and won five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls. His teams had a 9-1 record in the playoffs. Lombardi assisted for five years with the New York Giants and also coached at Fordham and West Point. However Lombardi got his coaching start at St. Cecilia’s High School in Englewood, New Jersey. He worked as an assistant for three seasons and was the head coach for five before heading to Fordham in 1947. According to “When Pride Still Mattered,” a Lombardi biography, St. Cecilia’s was 27-1-3 in Lombardi’s first three seasons. He also reportedly had a 25-game win streak and a 35-game win streak as the team’s head coach before moving on to Fordham.
2. John Wooden – South Bend Central
Known as the most successful college basketball coach in NCAA history, Wooden won 10 NCAA titles over the course of 12 seasons. He retired following the 1975 season and has a 671-161 career record at the college ranks. Wooden’s high school coaching record isn’t too shabby either. As the head coach at South Bend Central in Indiana, Wooden’s teams went 218-42.
1. Paul Brown – Massillon Washington
Brown is generally considered the greatest all-time football coach because of his tremendous success at the high school, college and professional levels. In the AAFC and later in the NFL, Brown won seven championships, including five in a row between 1946 and 1950 (four in a row in the AAFC and one in the NFL). His all-time professional record is 222-112-9. In college, he coached three seasons at Ohio State University. There his Buckeyes were 18-8-1 and a national championship in 1942. As a high school coach at Washington High School in Massillon, Brown posted an 80-8-2 record and had a 35-game winning streak during his nine seasons.
