Dolph Stanley

Coach Dolph Stanley will be inducted into the Inaugural Class of the Taylorville MO School Sports Hall of Fame Saturday Night, May 13, 1994 at a community banquet in the High School's West Gymnasium.    Coach Stanley, one of the winningest coaches in Illinois High School history, won a career total 957 high school games. He began his career at a small school, Equality, located in southeastern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest. This was the first of five different schools he took to the state finals in Illinois. After, Equality, he took Mt Pulaski, Taylorville, Rockford Auburn and Rockford Boylan to Champaign, with the 1944 Tornadoes as his only state Champion.    Coach Stanley began his career at Taylorville during the 1937-38 season where he established the first of his 8 winning seasons with the Tornadoes. In 1940, Stanley guided Taylorville to its first visit the Huff Gym and the "Sweet Sixteen." Known as a coach that was always building for "next yea?, Stanley followed the 1940 season with seasons of 264 in 1941, 28 - 5 in 1942 and 28-3 in 1943. During those successful seasons, he was developing players like Ron Bontempts, Johnny Orr and Schuitte Bishop, who, during the 1944 season, would give the state of Illinois its first perfect basketball season. After finishing 29 - 5 in 1945 with no player over six feet tall, Coach Stanley moved on from Taylorville, leaving(217)Wins and only 49 losses behind him.    Beloit College gave Coach Stanley his next big test. Using many of his former high school players and being able to recruit player who were getting out of military service from World War U Stanley led Beloit to successive winning seasons and became the smallest college to ever be invited to compete in the National Invitational Tournament, at the time the most prestigious college tournament in the country. In his twelve years at Beloit, his teams won 242 against only 58 losses.

After moving from Beloit, he became athletic director at Drake University.But administration was not as appealing as coaching, so Coach Stanley accepted the duties as head coach at Rockford Auburn. High School. In 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1968 he guided Auburn to the "Elite Eight" in Champaign. Facing mandatory retirement, Coach Stanley then moved across town to a parochial school, Rockford Boylan and in 1971 to the to their very first state tournament in the Assembly Hall.Coach Dolph Stanley did not a have a losing season his first 27 years of coaching, and he had only three losing seasons in his first fifty years of coaching. He won 18 of the 23 regional tournaments his teams were entered and was named the "All Time Illinois High School Coach" by the Chicago Tribune in 1990.