Coaching milestones: Cokeville’s Todd Dayton approaches 300 victories

For the first time in 2015, Wyoming may have a high school football coach reach 300 career victories.

Cokeville’s Todd Dayton, who has been the Panthers’ head coach since 1980, enters this season with 294 career victories, six short of the 300-victory milestone.

Only 27 active coaches nationwide enter 2015 with at least 300 victories, the NFHS Record Book says. Only 115 coaches nationwide have ever reached 300 victories, and only 60 have ever reached 300 at one school like Dayton is poised to do at Cokeville.

Dayton is one of only two coaches in the state to crack 200 victories; John E. Deti, the older of the two Detis and a longtime coach in Laramie, had 205 in his Wyoming career, records here show.

After Dayton, Wyoming’s other active members of the 100-victory club are Natrona’s Steve Harshman (166), Sheridan’s Don Julian (131), Southeast’s Mark Bullington (123) and Glenrock’s Ray Kumpula (101).

Kumpula, who has led Glenrock’s football team for 20 seasons, entered the 100-victory club last season, becoming the 24th coach in state history to do so.

This year, only one coach — Gillette’s Vic Wilkerson — has the chance to crack the in-state 100-victory barrier. Wilkerson, Gillette’s coach since 2004, has 90 victories entering the 2015 season. The next-highest active victory total in the state belongs to Douglas’ Jay Rhoades with 78, although Dubois’ David Trembly (76), Tongue River’s John Scott (75) and Wright’s Larry Yeradi (73) are close behind.

Here’s a look at Wyoming’s 100-victory club entering 2015:

Wyoming's all-time football coaching leaders

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Top winning percentages

With a winning percentage of .850 (294-52), Dayton is the only coach in state history with more than 100 games coached to have a winning percentage above .800. But Douglas’ Rhoades has a winning percentage of .813 in his 96 games in Wyoming and could join Dayton in the exclusive club this season.

Bullington (.764) and Julian (.762) are the active coaches with 100-plus games coached closest to Dayton; former Star Valley coach Robert Linford (.776) is the closest retired coach with 100-plus games coached to Dayton’s .850 mark.

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The 100-loss club

No active coaches have the chance to enter the even somewhat more “exclusive” 100-loss club in 2015. While 24 Wyoming coaches have reached 100 victories in the Equality State, only seven coaches have ever reached triple-digit losses (John R. Deti (John Jr.), John McDougall, Dallas Hoff, Carl Mirich, Pete Petronovich, Rich Steege and Yeradi). Yeradi enters the season with exactly 100 losses in his career at Wright. Of course, to coach long enough to get 100 losses, you have to be a pretty dang good coach; the bad coaches are discovered long before they have the chance to reach 100.

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Longevity milestones in 2015

Several coaches have the chance to reach longevity milestones in 2015. Only two active head coaches in Wyoming — Dayton and Harshman — have more than 200 total in-state games to their credit; Dayton is the state’s all-time leader with 346 and is one of only two past 300 games. Eight others (Kumpula, Julian, Yeradi, Bullington, Trembly, Wilkerson, Scott and Upton-Sundance’s Andy Garland) have cracked 100 games coached in Wyoming. Cheyenne East’s Chad Goff (98) and Rhoades (96) are on pace to top 100 Wyoming games coached in 2015.

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The unbreakable coaching record

One record that’s guaranteed never to be broken is career ties. That honor rests with Wheatland’s Glenn Rogers, who coincidentally finished his Wyoming coaching career almost perfectly even — 35 victories, 34 losses and 10 ties. No other coach has double-digit ties to his credit, although three coaches (Fran Gillette, who coached at Jackson, Green River and Powell from 1960-73; Glenn Burgess, who was at Riverton from 1959-69; and Bert Melchar, who coached at Green River and Rock Springs off and on from 1930-47) have nine ties on their Wyoming records.

Rogers coached Wheatland from 1927 to 1937; he had tie games in eight of his 10 seasons with the Bulldogs (no team in 1933) and twice had two ties in a season.

No active Wyoming coach has a tie on his in-state record. The last coach to have a tie on his record was Big Horn’s Rick Scherry, who retired in 2000. His tie came from the infamous Big Horn-Riverside triple-overtime tie in 1987, the state’s only tie game since 1975.

–patrick