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Vogts Still Means Football in Bethpage
BETHPAGE, NY -- If you are ever around Bethpage high school and mention the name Howie Vogts, one word will always come to mind: football.
A graduate of Adelphi University, Howie Vogts founded the Bethpage football program in the fall of 1952 when he was just 21 years old, and has been at the forefront of the program ever since.
Coach Vogts has been at the helm on the sidelines for the Bethpage Golden Eagles varsity football team since its first game on September 30, 1953, when Bethpage lost to St. Dominic’s 13-0.
The following year, the Golden Eagles football team became an official varsity program, and it didn’t take very long for Vogts to register his first career victory as head coach. On October 2, 1954, Vogts and the Golden Eagles defeated Wantagh high school, 20-7.
As it turns out, that victory was just the beginning of an illustrious career.
Since then, Vogts has gone on to compile 360 more wins in his 56 years as head coach, with the majority of those victories actually coming in the second half of his tenure.
In his first 23 years as head coach (1953-1976), Vogts compiled a 96-75- 7 record. Since then, however, Vogts’ teams have gone an impressive 275-43-3, with an .857 winning percentage.
Not many teams have the honor to play football on the very same field named after its coach. But in 1989, Bethpage High School named its football field after Vogts.
Immediately following the field dedication, Vogts led the Golden Eagles on a 60-game home unbeaten streak (59-0-1) through 2004.
His teams have won 29 regular season or Conference Championships, 13 Conference Playoff Championships, three Rutgers Cups, and five Long Island titles.
Vogts assault on the record books took a monumental turn on November 16, 2000. On the same day his Golden Eagles defeated Glen Clove high school, 16-15 to become Nassau County Conference III Champions, Vogts became the all-time winningest high school football coach in New York State history.
The record was 287 wins, and was previously held by Johnny Barnes of Canisuis High School in Buffalo, from 1931 to 1973.
Vogts continued to rack in the accolades in 2002, becoming the first high school football coach in New York to total 300 career wins. Three years later in 2005, Vogts was one of eight finalists nominated for the National Football Coach of the Year, an annual award given out by the National High School Athletic Coaches Association.
