Maine's Wolfgram won state championships at four schools on his way to becoming Maine's winningest coach

Kendall Webb

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Maine's Wolfgram won state championships at four schools on his way to becoming Maine's winningest coach image

Maine's all-time winningest high school football coach has passed away

The winningest head coach in the history of Maine high school football passed away earlier this week, as reported in multiple sources.

John Wolfgram died on Tuesday, August 5, at his home in South Portland, Maine. The 77-year-old coaching legend compiled a career record of 309-92-1, standing alone atop the all-time wins list in the history of high school football in the Pine Tree State.

Wolfgram picked up 10 state championship trophies along the way, winning at least one title at each of his four stops as a head coach. That included stints at Madison Memorial, Gardiner Area, South Portland, and Cheverus.

Prior to entering the coaching profession, the former Bay Stater enjoyed a successful prep career at Marblehead High School in Massachusetts. Wolfgram was a senior captain for the Magicians in the fall of 1965, but the real magic started when he entered the coaching ranks after completing his playing career at The University of Maine in Orono where he was again a starting center.

Wolfgram's career highlight at Maine came in his unsung role as a man in the trenches on October 18, 1969, during his senior year. A game report from the Monday, October 20, 1969, edition of The Bangor Daily News recounted that Wolfgram pounced on a fumble by his team's running back near the goal line and scored the Black Bears' only touchdown in a 28-7 loss to the UConn Huskies.

Following his graduation from Maine in the spring 1970, Wolfgram decided to hang around Orono as a graduate assistant while working on his master's, serving on the Black Bears' staff that fall. Then on July 8, 1971, the Lewiston Evening Journal reported that Wolfgram had landed a job as a teacher and a coach at Madison Area Memorial High School.

 

 

It was there that Wolfgram's coaching career began in earnest, and he got the first of his 309 wins in dramatic fashion, leading his Bulldogs to a 13-12 win over the Belfast (ME) Lions. It was his first game as the team's skipper, but it proved to be a rare moment to celebrate that season as Maine's all-time winningest coach ended his first season with a 3-6 record.

But it would be forever upward from there in the arc of Wolfgram's career as a head coach. By 1974, he had the Bulldogs in position for their first Class C title, heading into the team's annual rivalry game with the Skowhegan Indians with a 9-0 record. In a 14-8 decision, Wolfgram authored the winning game plan, and the Bulldogs finished as the only 10-0 team in Maine that season.

Gardiner Area High School came calling next, and Wolfgram relocated in the fall of 1975 to take over the Tigers' football program. In 11 years as the program's head coach, he built a juggernaut there, too, leading the team to three Class B championships in 1979, 1981, and 1985.

 

 

Then in the Tuesday, April 29, 1986, edition of the Kennebec Journal, the news broke that Wolfgram had resigned his position at Gardiner to take over as the head coach at South Portland High School. Coaching in Maine's highest classification for the first time, Wolfgram established the Red Riots as on of Maine's teams of the decade in the 1990's, picking up four more Class A state championship trophies highlighted by his first back-to-back titles in 1995 and 1996. He also led South Portland to titles in 1992 and 1999.

Wolfgram later moved back to the college ranks in 2001, spending five seasons as an assistant at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. But high school football was still in his blood, and in 2006, he accepted the vacant head coaching position at Cheverus High School in Portland where he wrote the final chapters of his legendary career. Wolfgram built the Stags into another powerhouse, winning two consecutive Class A titles for the second time in his career in 2010 and 2011 before retiring after the 2015 season.

It proved to be a short break as he returned in 2017 as the team's defensive coordinator, a position he still held in 2021 when the Stags won another state championship as the Class 8-man Large state champions.

Wolfgram finally retired for good in 2023, and he was later elected to the Cheverus Athletics Hall of Fame. His career as a football coach also spawned a side venture when he added author to his accomplishments with his 2017 book on coaching philosophy, "Coaching to the Highest Level."

 

 

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Kendall Webb

Kendall Webb is a freelance writer with The Sporting News and the former publisher of the College Football America Yearbook. He is a proud alumnus of Kilgore College (AA), the University of Texas at Austin (BJ), Middle Tennessee State University (BS), and Harvard University (ALM). Webb has attended a high school or college football game in more than 40 states during his career as a freelance journalist, and he remains an avid follower of team sports at all levels.