Eight area high school football coaches, one area soccer coach and one football program achieved milestone wins this fall.
In addition to winning the Class 6A State Football Championship, the Boylan football team also notched win No. 350 in program history. The program dates back to 1962 when Boylan opened to replace St. Thomas High School.
A pair of area football coaches won their 250th career game: the retiring Jerry Lano of Dakota and Newman coach Mike Papoccia, who coached his team to the Class 2A State Championship last weekend.
Rock Island coach Vic Boblett won his 200th career game this year, and Harvard's Tim Haak won his 150th career game.
Four area football coaches entered the 100-win club this year: Lena-Winslow's Ric Arand, Galena's Ed Freed, Amboy's Gary Jones and Mendota's John McKinzie. Arand coached his team to the Class 1A State Championship this season.
United Township soccer coach Phil Weaver won his 200th career game this season as well.
Milestones have already been made in the young winter sports season. Winnebago boys basketball coach Joe Murphy won his 600th career game, a combined boys and girls basketball win total, on Saturday win a win over Forrreston.
Finally, with basketball season and milestones comes the annual "Goers-Pingatore" update on the NISB Milestones Page. However, we're keeping it hush-hush as the two boys basketall coaches very seldom talk about their personal milestones. When the two were catching up to former recold-holder Dick Van Sycoc, we made it a running feature story. However, since both have passed Van Scyoc, we aren't making a big deal about it.
So anyway, here's an introduction and small update: Both Boylan coach Steve Goers and Westchester St. Joseph coach Gene Pingatore have been neck-to-neck in the race for the all-time wins mark for Illinois boys basketball coaches. Before the season started, Pingatore led Goers by three wins. St. Joseph went 1-3 at the St. Charles North Tournament on Thanksgiving Week, while Boylan went 3-1 at its own Tournament.
Currently, as of this post (12/2), Pingatore leads Goers by just one win at 862-861. Boylan has two games this weekend: Friday at Auburn and Saturday at Jefferson. St. Joseph has just one game this week: on Friday against Chicago Hales Franciscan. A Boylan win and St. Joes loss on Friday would put the two coaches equal in the win column. A Boylan weekend sweep and St. Joes loss would put Goers ahead of Pingatore for the first time since both surpassed Van Scyoc.
-Cody
