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By: Chris Evans
Barry Switzer, Bob Stoops, and Bud Wilkinson are names that will always be associated with Oklahoma University football. Well, when people look at Guthrie High School, the name Rafe Watkins will be associated as the best coach to come through these city limits.
Rafe Watkins arrived in Guthrie back in 2001 from Chisholm High School. Watkins was handed a program that just came off their first winning season since 1991 when the 2000 ‘Jays went 6-4 under the direction of Ty Prestige, current head coach at Mustang.
Here are just a few interesting facts that GuthrieSportsPage.com has researched.
· Watkins, who gets set to begin his eighth season, has won more games at Guthrie High then any other coach in Bluejay past. Currently Rafe now has 66 career Guthrie wins. The next coach on the list is Robin Roof with 45 wins.
· Watkins is the third, on the Bluejay coaching list, all time in winning percentage with .7765. Coaches Bob Sumrall and E.H. Winslow each have a percentage of .8000. However, both coaches only coached one season and combined were 12-3, in the two seasons, in 1908 and 1945.
· Watkins is fourth all-time in seasons coached at Guthrie. Max Smiley coached 9 seasons (1979-1987), Roof was the Bluejay head man for 9 seasons (1988-1996), and Evert Hafer coached 8 seasons (1928-1935), .
· Roof coached a total of 100 games during his coaching tenure. Watkins is just behind him with 85 games total at Guthrie.
· During the current tenure of Watkins, his teams have the longest consecutive winning seasons with seven. Before that the record stood at six back in 1903 to 1908.
· Rafe Watkins is the only coach to win a State Championship, at Guthrie, in both 2002 and 2007.
· Rafe Watkins has produced 13 of the 28 football All-Staters in Guthrie history.
Guthrie has been playing football for 105 seasons and sad to say there have been just 44 winning seasons in total, but Guthrie Bluejay football is in the best run ever in the programs history. Rafe Watkins has been and is a major part of the success and continues to move the program to a higher level.
| Coach | Seasons | Years | Wins | Loses | Ties | Games | Winning |
| Coached | Coached | Percentage | |||||
| Rafe Watkins | 8 | 2001-Present | 76 | 21 | 0 | 97 | 78.35% |
| Ty Prestige | 4 | 1997-2000 | 12 | 28 | 0 | 40 | 30.00% |
| Robin Roof | 9 | 1988-1996 | 45 | 55 | 0 | 100 | 45.00% |
| Max Smiley | 9 | 1979-1987 | 42 | 57 | 99 | 42.42% | |
| Mike Sperry | 4 | 1975-1978 | 15 | 28 | 43 | 34.88% | |
| Bert Elliot | 3 | 1972-1974 | 13 | 17 | 30 | 43.33% | |
| Al Blevins | 4 | 1968-1971 | 23 | 17 | 1 | 40 | 57.50% |
| John Heatherington | 3 | 1965-1967 | 14 | 15 | 1 | 29 | 48.28% |
| Floyd Clauses | 1 | 1964 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 20.00% | |
| Ken Naybor | 2 | 1962-19-63 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 19 | 52.63% |
| Buddy Burris | 2 | 1960-1961 | 6 | 14 | 20 | 30.00% | |
| Bob Daugherty | 3 | 1957-1959 | 9 | 18 | 2 | 27 | 33.33% |
| Liddell Pearson | 3 | 1954-1956 | 7 | 20 | 1 | 27 | 25.93% |
| Dean George | 3 | 1951-1953 | 11 | 19 | 30 | 36.67% | |
| Stanley Hicks | 2 | 1949-1950 | 4 | 17 | 21 | 19.05% | |
| Lyle Yarborough | 2 | 1947-1948 | 7 | 12 | 1 | 19 | 36.84% |
| Harry Sockler | 1 | 1946 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 50.00% |
| Bob Sumrall | 1 | 1945 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 80.00% | |
| Cecil Crooks | 1 | 1944 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 66.67% | |
| Charles Martin | 1 | 1943 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 10 | 20.00% |
| Clifford Wright | 5 | 1939-1942, 1936 | 32 | 22 | 54 | 59.26% | |
| Kenneth Gallager | 2 | 1937-1938 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 19 | 57.89% |
| Everett Hafer | 8 | 1928-1935 | 40 | 31 | 14 | 71 | 56.34% |
| John Mason | 3 | 1925-1927 | 11 | 20 | 1 | 31 | 35.48% |
| W.E. Young | 4 | 1921-1924 | 21 | 16 | 7 | 37 | 56.76% |
| George Purdue | 2 | 1919-1920 | 3 | 12 | 2 | 15 | 20.00% |
| John Gibbs | 1 | 1918 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 42.86% | |
| Maynard Ashworth | 2 | 1915-1916 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 45.45% | |
| John McCorkmick | 1 | 1914 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 40.00% | |
| Wayne Curfman | 1 | 1913 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 50.00% | |
| Harold Cook | 1 | 1912 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 50.00% | |
| Frank Doyle | 1 | 1911 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 50.00% | |
| E.H. Winslow | 1 | 1908 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 80.00% | |
| George Norris | 3 | 1905-1907 | 15 | 6 | 21 | 71.43% | |
| Season of 1903, 1904, 1909, 1910, and 1917 coaches were unavailable. | |||||||