O’Rourke a Hall of Famer, plus other coaching tidbits

Just found out Columbia River football coach John O’Rourke will be inducted into the state football coaches association’s hall of fame. I’ll have a short story on O’Rourke in Thursday’s paper.

O’Rourke’s news also led me to the coaches association’s site and the list of all-time wins. O’Rourke ranks 99th in the state, for all classifications.

That also reminded me that friend of the Columbian Bryan Levesque of gshlfootball.com fame broke down that all-time list a couple weeks back. Of the top 200 coaches in all-time wins for the state of Washington, 13 have coached in Southwest Washington. Four have coached at Camas.

Four are still coaching in Clark County today.

Here is the breakdown:

5th — Dick Armstrong (Camas, Sulton, Snohomish) 271-95-10

16th — Check Semancik (Aberdeen, Bremerton, W. Bremerton) 211-113-18

38th — Ed Laulainen (Kelso) 178-67-2

57th — Gary Boggs (Fort Vancouver) 155-158-4

61st — Jon Eagle (Evergreen, Redmond, Camas) 151-60

74th — Tom Bate (Battle Ground, Castle Rock) 143-86

86th — Gordon Elliott (Camas, Columbia River, Auburn) 138-88

99th — John O’Rourke (Columbia River) 131-66

113th — Lyle Pettyjohn (Washougal) 126-45-8

151st — Pat Hymes (Ilwaco, Kelso) 110-83

154th — Cale Piland (Juanita, Evergreen, Union) 108-37

154th — Rich Hilty (Camas, Lacross, West Valley of Yak.) 108-70-5

196th — Mark Greenleaf (Grandview, Port Angeles, Woodland) 96-94.

Thanks Bryan. Great stuff.

And congrats to Coach O’Rourke.