ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Todd Dodge is retiring as a Texas high school football coach, capping a storied career by leading Austin Westlake to its third consecutive state championship with a 40-21 victory over Denton Guyer on Saturday night.
Dodge announced his retirement before his 23rd season as a head coach in football-crazy Texas, where he was a trailblazing passing quarterback in Port Arthur before becoming a starter with the Texas Longhorns.
“I have three beautiful grandchildren. I want to be a paw-paw for those guys,” Dodge said after the game. “My mother is 83 years old and still knows who I am, and I want to spend as much time as I can with her.”
The seven coaching championships came in bunches for Dodge. Before the 58-year-old’s career-ending run with Westlake, Dodge led Southlake Carroll to four titles and a 79-1 record in a five-season span from 2002-06.
Only three head coaches in Texas have won more 11-man titles than Dodge, who leaves with Westlake on a similar run to his Carroll tenure with a 45-1 record covering three consecutive titles. The record of his teams in his seven championship seasons was 124-2.
Dodge won his sixth title and second at Westlake last season by beating his son Riley Dodge, the coach at Carroll and his former quarterback at the Dallas-area school.
All of Dodge’s championships came in the state’s highest classification, including the Class 6A Division II title this season. He finishes with a 233-72 record at six schools.
After the wildly successful run at Carroll, Dodge made the rare jump to FBS as a head coach but flopped in three-plus seasons at North Texas. Dodge’s record with the Mean Green was 6-37.
After a brief stint as a college assistant, Dodge returned to Texas as the coach at Marble Falls before moving to Westlake, where his career began in the 1980s as a student assistant. His first three head coaching jobs were at Cameron Yoe, Carrollton Newman Smith and Keller Fossil Ridge.
