The list of coaches who have graced the sidelines in the BCP coverage area is a mile long. Tons have blown whistles, called plays, celebrated wins and agonized over loses. Some coaches are in the past and others still have the fire. We took a look at some numbers that help define some coaching careers. Being an athletic coach is more than about wins and loses, but those wins and loses are earned either way and numbers that the men below should be proud of.

*The numbers below reflect coaching wins for county schools in their respective county.

Bill Castle, Lakeland head football coach stands alone at the top with 352 wins. Yep, that’s a lot! What may be even more impressive, in 37 seasons Coach Castle has only lost 99 games. An average of 2.7 loses a year.

Among active coaches, Earl Garcia is next in line with 208 wins as a Hillsborough County head football coach. Even with that remarkable number, he is still 144 wins behind Castle. Rod Shafer, Lake Wales head coach is 175 wins behind Castle. Shafer is also the second winningest Polk County football coach with 177 wins of his own. In Pinellas County, John Davis of Clearwater Central Catholic walks the top with 147 wins as a Pinellas County head football coach. He is still 205 wins behind Castle and Scott Schmitz is 264 wins behind Castle. Schmitz is the head coach at Mitchell High School in Pasco County and the winningest active coach in that area with 88 wins as a Pasco County head coach.

Top 5 winningest coaches (As a single county head coach)
1 Bill Castle: 352-99-0 (Lakeland 1976-Active)
2 Billy Turner: 254-153-1 (Hillsborough 1968-1972,1976-1978, Chamberlain 1979-2008)
3 Earl Garcia Jr.: 208-74-0 (Gaither 1987-1991, Hillsborough 1993-Active)
4 John Benedetto: 199-147-0 (Land O’Lakes 1977-2008)
5 Jerry Austin: 194-107-0 (Northeast 1979-2006)

The common theme seems to be consistency. Each coach listed above spent an extended period of time at one school. Earl Garcia spent 2 seasons at Boca Ciega prior to becoming the head coach at Hillsborough High. The other four coaches began coaching at their latest school in the late ’70s.

POLK COUNTY MOVEMENT
Lake Gibson head football coach, Keith DeMeyer is currently #6 on the Polk County All time list (138-77-0). Depending on the Braves upcoming season, DeMeyer can jump up one spot in front of former Lakeland/Bartow coach Paul Quinn (151-49-0).

Brothers, Richard and Charlie Tate can also move up the list. Charlie is the head coach at Winter Haven and is currently #10 on the Polk County list with 106 wins. He can move past former Ft. Meade coach, Mark Hayde who is sitting at #7 with 117 wins. Richard won a lot games starting a fairly new program at Ridge Community from 2005-2012, now the head coach at George Jenkins has 67 wins and is #15 on the list. He can move past Nurmi Nelson (75-68-8) former Lakeland head coach.

PASCO COUNTY MOVEMENT
Pasco head football coach, Tom McHugh has won 63 games in his six seasons as the Pirate head football coach. His 63-12 record has made him the #6 winningest coach in Pasco County history. If history repeats itself, as it has the past few seasons, McHugh will have another double digit win season and move past former Gulf coach, Wibur Lofton (74 wins) to claim the #5 spot.

Sunlake coach, Bill Browning has a chance to leap from #15 to #11. But, #11 is current Fivay coach, Chris Taylor who has 38 wins of his own and will win some games this year. Browning has 32 wins. So this could get interesting.

4 active Pasco County coaches are ranked in the top 20 all time in number of wins. Bill Browning, Sunlake (since 2007) is currently #15 with a 32-30-0 record. James Harrell is #50 on the Hillsborough County list with 36 wins (36-9) in four seasons (Freedom 2009,Jesuit 2010-2012).

HILLSBOROUGH JUMP
Interesting enough, Dominick Ciao (Berkeley Prep) is just 3 wins behind championship head coach, Sean Callahan (Armwood). Ciao sits at 177-80 while Callahan is 3 steps ahead of him at 180-100-0.

In just two handful of years, Robert Weiner (2004-Active) has 102 wins and moved into the #9 spot on the Hillsborough County winningest coach list. It is possible this season, he moves to #8 past Darlee Nelson, Plant/Jefferson. He would need an 12 win season to move past the legendary Panther and Dragon head football coach.

Mike Gottman of Durant, can make a huge jump. He could move from #23 all the way to # 15 currently held by Holland Aplin, Robinson. Gottman is 67-41 and Aplin is 79-55-3. Gottman and Durant would need another double digit win season. But, they showed last year…IT CAN HAPPEN.

PINELLAS JUMP
Pinellas County has eleven 100 win coaches. 3 are still active in Pinellas County and 1 is active across the bridge coaching in Hillsborough County. Of the 3 active 100 win coaches, John Davis 147-75-0 sits at the top. Clearwater Central Catholic head coach is #4 on the all time list, 33 wins behind the #3 spot held by Tom Bostic (179-167-0).

Largo head coach, Rick Rodriguez has a chance to jump up from #8 to #6. He has 115 wins and amazingly just 37 loses. He only needs 8 wins to move past Fred Robinson, Seminole.

George Palmer, Osceola and Sam Roper, Seminole will be jocking for the #7 spot. Problem is, Roper has recently retired and Palmer is still active. Palmer has 110 wins and Roper has 119 wins.

100 WIN COACHES BY COUNTY
HILLSBOROUGH 11
PINELLAS 11
POLK 10
PASCO 3

TOP 10 ACTIVE COACHES BY WINS
*The numbers below reflect coaching wins for county schools in their respective county.