Top 25 in 25: Best area football coaches

Windthorst's Green, Munday's Corcoran among the top leaders since 2000

Clockwise from top left: Windthorst’s Bill Green, Munday’s Patrick Corcoran, Graham’s Kenny Davidson and Holliday’s Terry Wolf.

Before going over my voting process and releasing my Top 25 area high school football coaches of the past 25 years, I want to be up front with my feelings about this.

Voting on this is more difficult than I thought it’d be. I’d gotten to know almost all these men well during my time covering area football for the Times Record News. But then I became a coach and realized how much dedication it takes and how much impact you have on your players.

Red River Roundup’s Top 25 in 25 coaching rankings are different than my buddy Jonathan Hull’s that he released on the TRN website. Those were assembled by a voting committee that included Hull, Tobin McDuff, Andy Newberry, Ben Coker, Chad Johnson, Cory Hogue, 940 Gameday’s Nolan Clark and myself. Between the eight of us, we have more than 130 years’ experience covering the area football scene throughout the 2000-24 period.

Below are my rankings that I submitted for the TRN ballot along with periodical explanations of why I voted how I did. I also include the TRN rankings and analyze how they compare to mine.

You’ll notice in my ballot below, but I emphasized what coaches accomplished at area schools during their time from 2000-24. Coaches that stayed here briefly and went on to greater success across the state didn’t have as much of an impact on me.

I tried to remove any bias from my ballot. In fact, I probably put my boss too low on this list. I hope you enjoy reminiscing about these outstanding football coaches and the legacies they’ve left.