Dodge caps stellar coaching career with seventh crown
ARLINGTON — Todd Dodge capped 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 after he was a trailblazing passing quarterback at Port Arthur Jefferson 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 careerending 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 11man 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 637.
As a senior at Port Arthur Jefferson in 1980, Dodge set the record for most passing yards in a season and became the first quarterback in Texas high school football history to pass for more than 3,000 yards in a season (3,135 yards). That same season,