Hillard Howard
Hillard Howard’s record includes all stops as coach: Howard had a record of 244 wins, 69 losses, and one tie game in his 25 years as a high school football coach, including state titles in 1987, 1988, and 1989 when he coached at Pikeville High School. He also coached the Pikeville girls to some incredible seasons in the late 1970s.
A 2011 story in the Whitesburg Mountain Eagle introduced Howard as the son of a coal miner with 13 siblings. Howard said sports kept him from following in his father’s footsteps.
“I was a pretty good boxer,” he told the Villages Daily Sun. “I won the state Golden Gloves championships in the late ‘60s and even went to the national Golden Gloves championship in 1970.” He also won the West Virginia Golden Gloves title two times.
After graduating from Pikeville College and receiving a postgraduate degree from Morehead State University, Howard took his first coaching job in 1972. The story of his coaching career is summarized in this paragraph from KHSAA.
Hillard Howard (Pikeville HS/Letcher County Central HS) — Howard was the head coach at Pikeville for 20 seasons, amassing 208 wins while leading the Panthers to three state titles. A five-time state Coach of the Year honoree, Howard guided Pikeville to three straight 1A state titles from 1987-1989. His teams won 12 Class A regional championships and added two state runner-up finishes during his 20 seasons (1972-89, 1994-95), while recording 208 wins against just 48 losses for an .813 winning percentage. In addition to his accomplishments on the gridiron, Howard spent two seasons as the girls’ basketball coach at Pikeville (1978-1980) and led the Panthers to consecutive 15th Regional Championships. Pikeville’s all-time winningest coach, Howard was inducted into the Panthers’ Hall of Fame in 2003 and the school’s football field has been named in his honor. He went on to coach five seasons at Letcher County Central (2005-2009), starting the football program when the school opened in 2005, and added two more regional championships to his resume.
Records show he actually coached the Pikeville girls basketball team more than stated in the KHSAA announcement. His first year as girls’ coach there was the 1975-76 season when they finished 10-15 in the school’s second year of basketball. The next four years brought greater results: 25-3 in 1976-77 and 24-1 in the 1977-78 season, with their only loss coming to Betsy Layne in the Regional semifinal. In 1978-79 their record was 25-5 when they won the 15th Regional tournament, defeating Sheldon Clark 72-70 in the final. They lost in the first game of the Sweet Sixteen to a great Laurel County team that went on to win the title that year. The final score was 60-57, the closest game for Laurel County in the whole tournament.
In his final year as coach of the Lady Panthers in the 1979-80 season, h is record was an incredible 30-1. He again led the team to the Regional championship but once again the Panthers fell in the first round, this time to Butler 77-51. Butler breezed through the tournament, winning it all with little resistance.
In his long tenure as football coach at Pikeville High School he had the good fortune of coaching his son Jason, who quarterbacked Pikeville to a state championship. After coaching football at Pikeville he moved back to coach at Letcher County Central for three years before retiring to Florida. His record in those last three years? 10-1, 10-2, and 11-3.
