Multi-Sport State Coaching Leaders

California’s winningest football and boys basketball coaches are Bob Ladouceur of Concord De La Salle and Gary McKnight of Santa Ana Mater Dei. Ladouceur retired after the 2012 football season. McKnight won his 1,000th game during 2014-15 season.

For the first time, we present an anchor home for instant access to the Cal-Hi Sports state record lists for coaching wins in football, boys basketball, girls basketball, baseball and softball. All records have now been updated through the 2019-20 school year for all five sports. Go inside for all the details.

Note: All state record lists in various sports will eventually be posted on this site as part of our Gold Club membership. There is no other source for this information other than through Cal-Hi Sports. To sign up for your Gold Club membership so you can see all of our weekly state rankings, player rankings, record updates and more, CLICK HERE.

(Be sure to also check out our basketball records and football records.)

For List of Coaches With Most CIF State Titles In Various Sports,
CLICK HERE.

FOOTBALL COACHING LEADERS

There are questions that still need to be figured out about when it happened, but there is no doubt that during the 2019 season that California added its 11th coach in state history to reach 300 wins or more for a career. That would be Hart of Newhall quarterback-producing legend Mike Herrington. He has been leading that program since 1989 and shortly after the season he announced he would be retiring as a coach to coincide with his retirement as a teacher.

Officially, according to our state records that do not count forfeit wins or losses, the 10th coach on that list also was added early this season when Santa Ana Mater Dei’s Bruce Rollinson reached the 300-mark. The school and the CIF and some media outlets already credited Rollinson with 300 wins from his last win of the 2018 season counting forfeits.

Herrington wasn’t the only coach with 300 career wins to say he’ll be retiring after the 2019 season. The other one is Kevin Rooney from Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks. He’s been the head coach at that school for 40 years.

With Herrington and Rooney both retiring and with the death of longtime head coach Lou Farrar (Charter Oak, Covina) in November, Rollinson will be the only active head coach with 300 wins or more to start the 2020 season. Farrar was still the official head coach at Charter Oak at the start of the 2019 season despite his illness. He didn’t get to coach in any games.

The next coach in line to perhaps reach 300 wins is Randy Blankenship, currently at Aptos and previously at Madera, Capistrano Valley of Mission Viejo, Fallbrook, Clovis West of Fresno and Nevada Union of Grass Valley. Any wins that Blankenship has from outside of California aren’t counted on a California list.

For the complete list, which is up-to-date heading into the 2020 season, and is for Gold Club members only, CLICK HERE.

To join our Gold Club membership, CLICK HERE.

BOYS BASKETBALL COACHING LEADERS

The biggest milestone win during the 2019-20 season, which was halted just a couple of days before the start of the CIF state championships in Sacramento due to the Coronavirus pandemic, came very on when longtime Westchester of Los Angeles head coach Ed Azzam won the 900th game of his career.

Azzam became just the fourth in state history to reach 900 and should be joined in the 2020-21 season by Don Lippi from Alameda St. Joseph Notre Dame. California also should add only its second to 1,000 in 20-21 as Mike LeDuc from Damien of La Verne is getting very close.

Santa Ana Mater Dei’s Gary McKnight continued to add to his numbers with a team that made it to the CIF Southern California Open Division semifinals. McKnight won his 1,100th game during the 2017-18 season and is still the only coach in state history to reach 1,000 wins.

With McKnight continuing to build his resume, we think he should one day get voted into the International Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. Yes, that’s the same one with Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Dr. J and all the rest. There are already several high school coaches who are in it and McKnight’s accomplishments are comparable or superior.

For the complete list, which is for Gold Club members only, CLICK HERE.

To join our Gold Club membership, CLICK HERE.

Mater Dei girls basketball coach Kevin Kiernan is surrounded by family and players after recording 762nd victory to break state record. Photo: Erik Boal.

Kiernan got the historic win at this year’s Nike Extravaganza. In the 2018-19 season, he surpassed the long-held state record of 761 wins set in 2007 by Joe Vaughan from Buena of Ventura.

Vaughan’s total also was surpassed in the 2019-20 season by Harvard-Westlake’s Melissa Hearlihy, who ended the campaign with 762 career triumphs.

Another highlight of the 2019-20 season was three different coaches earning their 600th victories. The three — Ellis Barfield of Lynwood, Terri Bamford of La Jolla Country Day and Steve White from Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills — also have all won at least one CIF state title.

For the complete list, which is for Gold Club members only, CLICK HERE.

To join our Gold Club membership, CLICK HERE.

BASEBALL COACHING LEADERS

There were some baseball coaches in the state who only got to play a handful of games during the 2020 season due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic and then the season being canceled.

Despite that, several communities still got to celebrate milestone wins by longtime head coaches. Topping the list was 700-club newcomer Manny Hermosillo from Montgomery of San Diego. He won his 700th when the Aztecs defeated San Diego High 7-1. His freshman grandson, Daniel Alcala, was on the team.

We also had Jeff Ingles of Winters win his 600th game, plus Scott Pearson from Warren of Downey got to 500. Another now on the list with 500 is Bob Parry of Poway, although the school actually celebrated that win for him late in the 2019 season.

For the complete list, which is for Gold Club members only and has now been updated through the 2020 season, CLICK HERE.

To join our Gold Club membership, CLICK HERE.

SOFTBALL COACHING LEADERS

After going 32-1 in 2019 and guiding the State Team of the Year, Norco’s Rick Robinson kept building his softball coaching resume in the early portion of 2020 by winning his 600th game. When it happened, folks just didn’t know for sure that the 2020 season was going to be toasted for good by the Coronavirus pandemic.

There weren’t as many other softball coaching milestones in 2020 as there were for baseball, but we do have a new member of the top 10 on the all-time list as Mike Noel of Clovis is now 10th while retired Teri Johnson from Union City James Logan has slipped to 11th.

For the complete list with all updates added for the 2020 season, which is for Gold Club members only, CLICK HERE.

To join our Gold Club membership, CLICK HERE.

Note: All coaching records have been updated through the 2018-19 school year.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports