On Friday, at the age of 87, legendary South Dakota high school football coach Max Hawk passed away at his home in Arizona. He is known most throughout the state for his football coaching legacy at Yankton high school. His resume included ten state football championships and an overall win total of 284 – third all-time.
Hawk was born in South Dakota where he grew up and graduated from Wessington Springs high school in 1951. He then attended Northern State University where he received a college degree from in 1957. Through both his high school and college career, Hawk participated in track, basketball, and football.
Hawk began his coaching career in Scotland where he spent eight years (1957-1964). He then moved to Yankton where he coached the Yankton Bucks football team for 30-seasons (1965-1994). Throughout his time with Yankton, Hawk won eighteen conference championships and ten state championships, which to this day is still one of the best resumes of any high school coach in South Dakota history.
He retired from coaching at the conclusion of the 1994-95 school year with an overall record of 284-78-2 – a career win percentage of roughly 78 percent.
In SDPB's '100 Yards, 100 Years' documentary, Max Hawk spoke about his legacy as a football coach.
"People ask me, to what I attribute my great record. I say 'longevity.' If you’re in it long enough, you’re going to win a lot of games. I think someone said ‘well how come you stay in it so long?’ Well, I stayed in it for 38-years probably because I was successful," explained Hawk. "People ask me all the time, 'what’s the best team you ever coached?' There are too many people or kids that I coached, that I’ll never say who was the best team, it wouldn’t be right, because there were so many good athletes and so many good teams."
Hawk also mentioned the rewards of coaching football that extend outside of wins and championships.
"A lot of times you take kids that are having trouble in life, you put them in athletics, and you give them success and it changes their life around," Hawk said. "I don’t want to say that you save every kid, but you have more successes than you do failures in athletics, I have found, and that gives you a lot of satisfaction, keeps you going."
At the time of his retirement, Hawk was the winningest high school football coach in South Dakota history. Long time O’Gorman Knights football coach, and now O’Gorman Activities Director, Steve Kueter beat Hawk’s total during the 2015 season, and then Roosevelt’s Kim Nelson broke Kueter’s win total in 2019, which now sits over 300.
Hawk also served as the Executive Director of the South Dakota High School Coaches Association for four decades. One of his highest achievements throughout his coaching career was being named National Football Coach of the Year in 1986.
As listed in Max Hawk’s obituary, he is a hall of fame member at Yankton high school, Northern State University, the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame, the South Dakota High School Coaches Association, and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association.
In 2016, Max Hawk was also interviewed as part of SDPB's 'Tales of the Gridiron' series during a segment on Crane-Youngworth Field in Yankton.
