Dewey Sullivan (May 6, 1935 – November 8, 2006) coached football at Dayton High School from 1965 to 2006, compiling a record of 352-84-2, still one of the top records for any Oregon high school coach.
He was a positive influence on hundreds of players as well as students in his biology classes during his four decades at Dayton, and an equally influential icon to his fellow coaches.
During his forty-two-year coaching career, Dayton teams won five state titles and made a record twenty-five straight football playoff appearances. Sullivan won 24 Coach of the Year awards while at Dayton. In 2001 he was named the National High School Coach of the Year. In 2002, he won his final state championship with a team led by NFL-bound running back and tight end Dante Rosario.
Until 2023, Dewey Sullivan was the winningest high school football coach in Oregon history. He is among the winningest high school coaches in the nation.
Sullivan was born in Geary, Oklahoma, on May 6, 1935, and was a graduate of Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado in 1959. He came to Dayton in 1965, to teach and coach football and never left.
Dewey’s teams played a conservative brand of football that took on their coach’s no-nonsense personality. Sullivan’s full house-T offense had but a handful of plays, but when executed to his satisfaction, it made the Dayton Pirates almost unstoppable. He was known as a man of high integrity and in the classroom was just as determined to help students learn as he was coaching football on the sidelines.
Dewey Sullivan was elected to the National High School Hall of Fame in 2008.