Iconic Sacred Heart-Griffin football coach Ken Leonard to step down after next season

It's time for a different kind of season.

Longtime Sacred Heart-Griffin football coach Ken Leonard will step down at the end of next season, the Springfield school announced in a news release on Thursday.

Leonard, 68, officially notified the school in a letter on Wednesday, SHG president Katherine O’Connor said.

“For a lot of people, Coach Leonard is Mr. SHG,” O’Connor said. “He’s been here since the beginning of SHG. He’s really represented us well.”

Leonard is the all-time winningest coach in Illinois High School Association history. His 404-83 overall record spans 42 seasons first beginning with Gridley in 1980. He took over the Cyclones program — then Griffin — in 1984 and has since chalked up a 372-72 record in 38 seasons.

"At the end of last year I wasn’t quite ready," Leonard said. "Now it’s time. You don’t go 45 years, ‘This is the team that I want to finish on.’ It was time. God put it in my heart, it’s time for a new season in my life. "

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Leonard will retire as the football coach on Dec. 31. He has simultaneously served as the athletic director throughout his tenure and will leave that position in June.

"I’m excited for the first time in 45 years I don’t have to worry about anything besides football because the athletic director job is going to be with somebody else, so we can just focus on football and that’s it," said Leonard, who anticipates a subsequent announcement naming the next athletic director and football coach. "After Thanksgiving and that December, I can just look forward to what’s next in sunny Florida maybe for the next couple of months."

SHG has won five state championships under Leonard — 2005-06, 2008, 2013-14 — with four additional title-game appearances.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Ken for quite a number of years,” assistant principal and former assistant football coach Bob Brenneisen said in the release. “I most appreciated his loyalty and dedication to SHG as well as his support for all athletes and teams. He lived and breathed SHG athletics. His presence will be greatly missed. He is Mr. SHG.”

Ken's son, Derek, has carved out a sterling high school coaching career himself with eight state titles at nearby Rochester.

Derek said dad deserves a little time off.

"As a coach to me, he’s the best," Derek said. "It doesn’t matter any level I’ve ever been around. I’ve learned so much not only as a son but as a coach how he treated his players, how he treated the people around him and how he treated us as a family. I saw it from every angle obviously.

"I think he’s the best of all time, I really do. I’ve been around a lot of guys and I truly believed he was so far ahead of his time. Truly one of the greatest to do it at any sport at any level."

That leaves just one last season of the heralded Leonard Bowl showdown — perhaps a relief but also bittersweet. This annual Central State Eight Conference contest has been one of the state's premier matchups since 2010, though often at their own expense.

"It’s always been a great game," Derek said. "This town is very lucky to have him and Griffin, and the area’s been very lucky."

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The Cyclones defeated Rochester in the Class 4A semifinals and reached the state title game against Joliet Catholic Academy this past November with a talented junior roster.

“People started knowing,” O’Connor said of issuing the news release, “so it’s fair that everybody knows and that information be available for everybody else and not a select few.”

Leonard said his retirement plans include spending time with his family and grandchildren.

"I just want to give all of the praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s all about him, and it’s been a great journey, and I’ve had a great place to coach at Sacred Heart-Griffin," Leonard said. "I’ve been blessed to work at the school and coach the people that I’ve coached and have the staff that I’ve had.

"I’m just a blessed man, there’s no question."

Contact Bill Welt: bill.welt@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/BillWelt

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA football: Ken Leonard to retire as all-time winningest coach