Winningest Programs in Illinois

Fellow media members! The attached list shows your school as one of the top schools in Illinois according to total wins, which starts with a minimum of 300 wins (aka Project 300), as well as the best winning percentage with a minimum of 250 games played, or as a school that has won 250 games.

This is the seventh year that a listing has been presented by conference historian Tom Sikorski and myself. The list has evolved to more than just what school has the most wins, and we have added a tab for schools that could very be joining the schools with 300 wins or more in the near future.

We have uncovered a lot of information that has yet to be reported on the IHSA website, which has been an important source to this work.Even some schools (especially from the Chicago Public League) do not realize what their own totals are, so this list has been helpful.

Congratulations go out to the following schools for reaching milestone wins in 2017: Belleville Althoff Catholic (600); Normal University andHinsdale Central (500); Princeton, Momence, Eureka, andRiverside-Brookfield (400), and to Williamsville, Rock Falls, Tinley Park HS, Cahokia, Arlington Heights St. Viator, New Lenox Lincoln-WayCentral, and Mt. Sterling Brown County (300). A special mention goes out to Franklin Park Leyden, who had reached the 400 win previously.

Also, there are quite a few schools that are within 10 wins of the next milestone: Greenfield-Northwestern, Casey-Westfield, Danville,and Stockton (600); Carbondale, Flora, Alton HS, Edwardsville, ChicagoMorgan Park, Geneva, Manlius Bureau Valley, Woodstock Marian CentralCatholic, Barrington, and Rockton Hononegah (500); McHenry, Mt. Zion,Winchester West Central, Chicago Austin College and Career Academy,Freeport, Cambridge Ridgewood, Plano, Orland Park Sandburg, Marengo, Dixon, Crystal Lake Central, and Richmond-Burton (400).

A number of schools on the list have kept a history of their own programs, and we have been able to obtain their books. Schools such as downstate Mt. Carmel, Champaign Central, Joliet Catholic, Bloomington,Morris, Carlinville, Auburn, DuQuoin, Washington, Metamora, Staunton, Hillsboro, Kankakee McNamara, Deerfield, and Jacksonville ISD have provided some written form of history to help this project along, while researchers like Robert Pruter, Dan Eilts, Phil Shadid, Eric Dornbush, Garrett Newman, Mike Monahan, Steve Solarz, George Scheetz, Curt Roseman, Jack Dye, Jim Spencer, Mark Braun, Brian Smith, TomWilson, Merlin Haas, Tom Polaski, Ron Murphy, Erich Murphy, Bob Zaininger, and many others who have contributed something along the way to help make this list possible....we certainly appreciate your efforts to provide detailed information on your school or schools.

A special thanks goes to the IHSA, whose website (www.ihsa.org) lists season summaries for each school online. There is no other website in Illinois that has this information, and we certainly are grateful that they have devoted space online to help provide the history of each school's football program.Hopefully one day, their totals will match ours, and we are certainly open to having dialogue with them to bring it together.We also are grateful for the information that has been provided to the website Illinois High School Glory Days (www.illinoishsglorydays.com) for a number of schools, some of which are part of the totals for schools such as El Paso-Gridley, Toulon Stark County, Fairbury PrairieCentral, and Carthage Illini West that appear with 300 wins or more.

Also, a few schools have counted wins in six-man football as well as11-man. Back in the late 30's and 40's, schools such as Colfax, Lexington, Mahomet, and Tolono had experience with the six-man game before putting 11 on the field, with a number of their wins coming from the lesser number. There are seven schools in the state that are playing eight-man ball this year such as Jacksonville ISD and LakeForest Academy, and we have decided to count the eight-man wins in their overall totals.In addition, we are happy to provide spreadsheets on each school, so if you have questions about a specific school on this list and you would like a copy, please email me and we'll send it to you.Our goal is to get this annual list out each year before school begins, and we hope you will share this list with others. Should it be used in any media (print, electronic, or online), we ask that you would please credit Tom and myself as the source of this list. Thank you for your time and consideration, and hope that the 2018 prep football season in Illinois is enjoyable.

Tom Sikorski, Historian and Kev Varney, Site Author Illinois High School Glory Days