Conway football has a storied program which nears 100 years

Last week, we looked at the football history of Conway Christian School. The Eagles have been playing for about a decade. This week we’ll look at Conway High, which has been playing for close to century. CHS fielded its first gridiron squad in 1919. This current campaign would have been the 100th season of football, but the Cats did not field a team in 1943. So, the 2019 Cats will represent the 100th season of Conway High School football. We’ll have to have some sort of get together for all former players. Today, we are going to look at the 98 seasons from 1919 to 2017. That inaugural squad went 5-2, the first of 64 winning seasons in program history. Overall, the Cats have played 1,030 games. Their record is 614-382-34, good for a winning percentage of 61.3. The fewest games ever played in a season were three in 1930. It was the only winless season in program history, finishing 0-3. The most games played in a season is 14 in 1993, when Kenny Smith’s bunch lost in the state championship game. Smith is the longest tenured head coach, serving 18 years. His 204 games are almost 20 percent of the overall total. He has the most wins in program history with 129. The coach with the highest career winning percentage is Cecil Garrison at 100 percent. His two teams at CHS from 1946 and 1947 both went 10-0. Thirteen times the Cats have hit double digits in wins, with 11 being the most in any season. The 1964 team went 11-0 under Rex Lovell and was voted state champions in the pre-playoff era. Records may be incomplete, but I have CHS down for a dozen conference titles and 26 playoff trips. The Cats have made the postseason 22 of the past 27 years, including nine in a row. Their most successful three-year run has been 2001-2003, both in total wins with 30 and in winning percentage with 81.1 percent. That just so happens to be the three years that Peyton Hillis wore the blue and white. For 98 seasons from 1919 to 2017, CHS had 23 head coaches. For the last 41 years from 1977 to 2017, CHS had only four coaches - Jerry Joe Harrison, Buzz Bolding, Kenny Smith and Clint Ashcraft. In the 10 years prior, they had four. Several former Wampus Cat players have returned to serve as head coach at their alma mater, including brothers Ken and Bill Stephens, Dennis Fulmer, Joe Fred Young, Ernest Ruple and Kenny Smith. The highest winning percentage for a decade is 74.4, accomplished in the 1940's. The most wins in any decade is 80, which occurred in the 1960's. With 63 wins from 2010-2017, the Cats could surpass that win total under new coach Keith Fimple with a couple of good seasons to end out the 2010's. They are already off to great start in 2018.

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Conway High School Athletics

CONWAY FOOTBALL HAS A STORIED PROGRAM WHICH NEARS 100 YEARS

DAVID GRIMES

Log Cabin Democrat | 9/28/2018