Rockford's 10 greatest high school football coaches and what made them great

Football has been Rockford’s greatest sport. Especially among the traditional big three in American sports.

The NIC-10, Big Northern and NUIC haven’t had a state boys basketball champion since Rockford West in 1955 and 1956. The closest champ since then is 1999 Class A champ Rock Falls, before the Rockets joined the Big Northern. Rockford Christian won the 2A state baseball title in 2015, but no NIC-10 or NUIC team has ever won state in baseball.

And while area small schools have stood out in various sports, particularly volleyball and girls basketball, none have been as dominant as area football powers. NUIC teams, plus South Beloit, which was in the NUIC for a few years, have won 17 titles in Class 1A and 2A since 1999. Local BNC teams Byron and Stillman Valley have won seven in 3A and 4A since then. Boylan won two for the NIC-10 in 2010 and 2011. Byron and Class 1A kingpin Lena-Winslow have been ranked No. 1 in the state all year. Again.

More: Rockford’s greatest games No. 1: Aquin-E/PC record shootout, 78-74

Who are the men behind all this football success? Well, after covering 33 seasons of Rockford-area football, here are my picks for the greatest football coaches in Rockford-area history.

(Note: Rockford has so many great coaches that winning 200 games or winning state titles or even being a great innovator wasn’t always enough to make my list. A few of the toughest ones to leave off will be mentioned at the end of this story. I also tried to pick only one coach per school.)

1) Dan Appino

When Appino was promoted from assistant to head coach at Boylan after Bill Thumm retired, he went 22-10 in his first three years. And then he never lost another conference game. He went 68-5 in his last six years at Boylan, starting the Titans’ epic record 75-game conference win streak. His last two teams went 28-0, winning state in 6A in 2010 and 7A in 2011. Those are the only back-to-back undefeated state champs in area history. He then moved to Auburn and transformed a team that was 0-27 the previous three years, going 43-20 in six years, including the only two NIC-10 titles in Auburn history and five of its first six playoff appearances.

More: Honorable mention greatest football games

2) Vern Pottinger

Pottinger is a legend — in two states. He was 146-69 in 20 years at Belvidere, winning back-to-back state titles in 1993 and 1994 and finishing a close second in 1988, when the Bucs lost 29-26 to Peoria Richwoods. Pottinger was somehow both old school and an innovator, running the wishbone but doing so in a no-huddle, hurry-up fashion. After Pottinger moved to Wisconsin, he led Rice Lake to a pair of state runner-up finishes and is in both the Illinois and Wisconsin football Halls of Fame. He won nine conference championships and coached in four state all-star games and was named conference or state coach of the year seven times. Pottinger spoke at football clinics all over the midwest and former Orangeville and Harlem coach Brian Benning always made it a point to attend Pottinger's sessions. "I was just enamored with the guy," Benning said. "I was blown away by his level of detail on everything. It was a wishbone factory down there." Perry Giardini, who coached East to a state title in 1985, said Pottinger "might have been the best of all of them. He had an offense that he ran to perfection."

3) Ric Arand

Arand has made Lena-Winslow perhaps the greatest football dynasty in the state, winning six Class 1A state titles in the last 12 seasons. Arand (243-66 heading into the playoffs this year) has never had a losing season in 27 years at Le-Win and has missed the playoffs only once, back when 6-3 wasn’t good enough to get in his second season in 1998. It took Arand 14 seasons to win his first title, but Le-Win then became dominant despite playing in a conference where five other conference rivals (Dakota, Aquin, Galena, Forreston and E/PC) combined to win 10 state titles either five years before or after Le-Win’s first title. He is No. 2 all-time in area coaching wins. "What Ric is doing is off the charts, crazy good," said Brian Benning, who coached against Arand both as a head coach at Orangeville and as an assistant for five years at Dakota. "The run that they are one and what he has built there is something I have never seen in my lifetime in high school football. If you have a Mount Rushmore of coaches, you would have to put him in a separate spot and then put your Mount Rushmore guys beneath him. What he has done is insane."

4) Mike Lalor

Lalor (213-77 in 26 years at Stillman Valley) won five state titles in his first 16 seasons. It was almost six: The Cardinals lost 22-20 on a failed two-point conversion run to Carthage Illini West in the 3A finals in 2010. The Cardinals haven’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since their last state title in 2013, but they remain a Big Northern contender almost every year.

More: Rockford’s greatest football players No. 1: Sean Considine Byron’s humble Super Bowl champ

5) Jerry Lano

Lano is the man who first made the NUIC the most feared small-school conference in the state. He led Dakota to three state titles, including twice when they were barely bumped up to Class 2A. Lano went 179-82 in 25 years at Dakota from 1989-2013. He also coached at two Minnesota schools before coming to Dakota, giving him an overall record of 272-129 for second-most wins by an an area coach. "Jerry was a very fundamental guy; very old-school in terms of work ethic," said Brian Benning, who coached against Lano at Orangeville and was a defensive assistant under Lano on two of those Dakota state title teams. "It was nothing fancy that he did; just very efficient and got his guys to work extremely hard. They were just going to push you around."

6) Jeff Boyer

Jeff Boyer lost his title as the quarterback of Byron’s only state title team when he coached the Tigers to their second state title in 2021. He also led Byron to Class 3A runner-up finishes in 2018 and 2019. He has yet to coach as long as anyone else on this list, but was 110-27 lifetime entering the playoffs this year. That .803 career winning percentage is the best in area history, ahead even of Stockton’s John O’Boyle (.790) and Lena-Winslow’s Ric Arand (.786) and Boylan's Bill Thumm (.751). In his last seven full seasons, Boyer is 81-7 and has led the Tigers to an unbeaten regular season five times. As a senior, Boyer quarterbacked a team led by future Super Bowl champion Sean Considine that scored a then-state record 673 points and outscored teams 673-177. This year's team entered the playoffs even more dominant, outscoring teams 537-45 during the regular season. "Jeff understands that the X's and O's are only one part of building a football program," said Considine, who works as an assistant under Boyer. "He has high expectations on the details he knows makes a team successful. It starts with work ethic and buying in. He ensures the families and communities are involved."

7) John O’Boyle

O’Boyle ruled the northwest corner of the state for decades, going 279-74-1 in 35 years at Stockton. He ranks 10th on the state’s all-time list for coaching wins. He won two 1A state titles with the Blackhawks and also took second twice. He probably would have won more but the playoffs didn’t start until 1974. He took Stockton to the state finals three times in the first five years of the playoffs. In the last seven years before the playoffs started, Stockton was 56-6-1. Those Stockton teams, and the 1973 East E-Rabs, are probably the two greatest what-if local football stories about great teams that didn’t get a full chance to prove their greatness. "Stockton never, never beat themselves," said former Orangeville and Harlem coach Brian Benning, "and thats a tribute to how he coached. They were so fundamentally sound. And they always had a few trick plays they would use. You prepared for that and scouted them but the trick plays, even though people knew they were going to do something at some point, always seemed to work and were hugely impactful on the game."

8) Bob Pellant

Pellant made East the first NIC-10 football dynasty. It was known as the Big Eight and Big Nine back then, but the conference has had its modern shape ever since 1964, with Aurora East, Aurora West and Elgin leaving in 1962 and LaSalle-Peru exiting in 1963. That 1964 season was Pellant’s first. He was actually first hired as East’s basketball coach, but fans campaigned to hire someone more experienced after his hiring was first announced. Then, after East football coach Russ Erb left to coach in the suburbs, East hired Pellant for football. Pellant went 80-31 in 12 years with the E-Rabs, winning seven conference titles and taking second twice. The 1973 team was ranked No. 1 in the state, outscoring teams 225-52, but there were no playoffs. The next year, the first in playoff history, East outscored teams 311-41 and won state. Those two teams were a combined 21-0. A Chicago Tribune poll in 2017 named the 1974 team one of the 32 greatest teams in state history. "That was the finest group of high school football players I have ever seen," said former East coach Perry Giardini, who played on Pellant's first team and had his older brother, Gary, coaching on that 1974 team and his younger brother, Terry, playing on that title team.

9) Cal Cummins

Cummins coached Freeport to a then-record four consecutive unbeaten NIC-10 titles from 2001-04. They never led the league in scoring in any of those seasons, but had the top defense each year, holding conference rivals to less than 10 points a game for four years in a row. He finished 109-61 in 17 years at Freeport. The Pretzels have never had a winning record in the 19 years since he left, making the playoffs just once, when they finished 5-5 in 2008.

10) Joe Blume

Blume may be the most forgotten coach on this list. His record is very good — but elevates to great when you see what happens when he left and what he helped others do. Blume was 101-80 in 18 years at Jefferson from 1975 to 1993. He led the J-Hawks to the playoffs in eight of his last nine seasons. Since he left, Jefferson has had 32 consecutive losing seasons. He also went 20-11 in three seasons as Stillman Valley’s head coach, leading the Cardinals to the 2A state semifinals his final year in 1997. He was the defensive coordinator at Stillman for 14 seasons before his death in 2012, helping the Cardinals win their first four state titles. "Joe was a hard-nosed guy," said Perry Giardini, who coached East to a 1985 state title. He always had a good team. He was one of those guys who got the most out of his kids."

Other great coaches

A few honorable-mention picks: Everett Stine was 222-130-6 in 37 years at Byron and his Class 3A state title team in 1999 was one of the more dominant teams in state history. … Bill Thumm was 178-59 in 22 years at Boylan. … Brian Benning won a Class 1A state title at Orangeville and then took over a Harlem team that was near the tail end of a state record-tying 47 game losing streak and led the Huskies to their only full-season conference title four years later. ... Denny Diduch struggled at Guilford, but was 87-27 with two state titles at Forreston — despite having to go through Lena-Winslow to get there. … Jan Jameson (61-45 at Guilford), Bill Johnson (73-39 at Eastland/Pearl City) and Drew Pothoff (29-41 at South Beloit) were early adaptors of the spread offense, with Jameson and Pothoff each winning a state title. … Randy Asche went 84-33 at E/PC with four NUIC titles even when Dakota, Le-Win and Forreston were strong, winning one state title in 2A. … Tom Schwalbach was 101-99 at Rockford West from 1966-88, leading the Warriors to the state semifinals twice.

Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Ranking Rockford's 10 greatest high school football coaches