For the first time in nearly 40 years, Coastal Bend powerhouse Corpus Christi Calallen will have a new head coach.

Phil Danaher, the winningest Texas high school football coach of all-time, retired Monday afternoon following a head coaching career spanning 48 years.

The 73-year-old’s tenure at Calallen culminated in two trips to the 5A Division II state championship, once in 2005 and the last being in 2016.

He surpassed the great G.A. Moore in November of that 2016 run to become the winningest coach in Texas high school football history and will retire with 422 wins at Calallen alone (490 overall). Under Danaher, the Wildcats made 12 state semifinal appearances and 21 regional finals.

Already a member of the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame and Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fames, he was also inducted into the THSCA Hall of Honor in 2017.

Danaher is the fifth all-time winningest high school football coach in the nation and will also retire with the most playoff wins (93), playoff appearances (41) of all time and the second-most district championships (28) in Texas high school football history.

Following his 2016 season, he graced the gatefold cover of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine and in 2009, Corpus Christi ISD renamed the football field in Danaher’s honor.

Danaher was hired in 1984 following a successful six-year stint at Hamshire-Fannett where he was a two-time regional finalist in 1980 and 1978. Prior to that, he coached at Dilley for three seasons and led them to a regional final in 1974.