Head Coach John Tyree, 82, begins his first season leading the Banning High Broncos football team as they play their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
BANNING >> Long regarded as a most unique character in Inland-area high school football, John Tyree is now unique for a different reason — one he doesn’t exactly enjoy discussing.
At 82 years young, Tyree — the first-year coach at Banning High School — is believed to be the oldest head football coach in CIF State history, according to Mark Tennis from Cal-Hi Sports.
“I wish you guys would quit talking about that,” he said recently, only half-jokingly, while watching a lower-level game from the Banning press box.
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, tells a Banning Xavier Davis #64 begins his first season leading the Banning High Broncos football team as they play their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, begins his first season leading the Banning High Broncos football team as they play their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Banning head coach John Tyree talks with players during their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, begins his first season leading the Banning High Broncos football team as they play their season opener against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, smiles as he meets with officials before the first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, gets upset as his player do not recover an onside kick in the first half of the season opener against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, signals a touchdown as his team scores only to have it called back on a penalty in the first half of the game against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, stands alone after talking with player one on one during halftime of the season opener against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, during the national anthem for the first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Banning head coach John Tyree and assistant coach John Stockham walk off the field as they together talking about the second half of the game and the improvement made with players against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
A Banning player ties the shoe of Banning head coach John Tyree in the second half of the game against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
The smile on Banning head coach John Tyree face as he talks with his team at the end of the season opener is part of the reason he is still coaching after all these years after the 27-6 loss to West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, gets the attention of every player as he talks with them after a penalty during the second half of the game against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Banning head coach John Tyree second from right smiles as the bench celebrates the teams score against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, talks with Banning Kadence Tamez #34 during halftime about how to improve in the second half against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, keeps his eyes on formation during an offensive play against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, talks with his players during an injury timeout in the first half of the game against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, runs plays with his team as they warm up to play their season opener against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Banning head coach John Tyree talks with assistant coach John Hunt after Hunt was flagged for coaching outside the sideline box against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, walks away after talking to the team before their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Banning head coach John Tyree, center walks to the bus with assistant coaches after the 27-6 loss in the season opener against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, gets out of the way of a play coming towards the sideline in the second half of the game against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Head Coach John Tyree, 82, begins his first season leading the Banning High Broncos football team as they play their first game of the season against West Valley High in Hemet on Thursday, September 2, 2021. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Embarking on yet another challenge, Tyree’s Banning team is off to an 0-2 start and begins Desert Valley League play Friday night when it plays host to Yucca Valley.
While others shake their heads in amazement, all Tyree sees is a chance to rebuild again. That’s something he’s done repeatedly in a long and distinguished career that includes 227 victories and CIF Southern Section championships won in 1973 at Imperial High School and 1989 at Pasadena Muir.
His first head coaching job was in 1968 at the now-defunct Mt. Carmel in Los Angeles. His most recent gig was a return to the Imperial Valley, where he turned an 0-10 squad at Calexico in 2015 into a San Diego Section playoff team the following year. He spent four seasons there.
In between were his most well-known Inland stops, first at Fontana from 1974-76 — preceding coach Dick Bruich’s subsequent 22-year playoff streak and two CIF-SS championships there — and later at A.B. Miller in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He became part of an impressive Citrus Belt coaching fraternity that included Bruich, Jim Walker at Redlands, Eisenhower’s Tom Hoak, and later, Don Markham at Rialto and Kurt Bruich at Redlands East Valley.
With a new job in the San Gorgonio Pass, he has no plans to stop any time soon.
“He has more energy for an 82-year-old guy that I’ve ever seen,” said Walker, who battled against Tyree often during his own 25 years in the Citrus Belt League.
“If you’ve been around him for more than five minutes,” said Banning first-year athletic director Keith Chann, the former state-meet qualifying cross country coach at Rubidoux, “then you know he has the energy to last forever.”
Add in time as an assistant, and Tyree’s resume goes back even further. When his college playing career ended due to a knee injury, Tyree said he caught on as an assistant coach for Sammy Baugh, then an assistant football coach at Oklahoma State.
Yes, that Sammy Baugh — the leather-helmeted, Hall of Fame quarterback who revolutionized the NFL’s passing game in the 1930s and 1940s.
“He was incredible,” Tyree, a native of Lawton, Okla., said of Baugh. “He was 50 years old at the time and he could outdo everyone on the team.”
After helping out at San Bernardino High School last year, he unsuccessfully applied for the Banning job last spring but got a second chance when new hire Pete Smolin left to take the Valley View job.
“I’m still wound up,” he said. “I still get wound up when I hit the field. I’m like an old Bear Bryant.”
This job fits Tyree’s profile.
At around 1,100 students, Banning is a bit of an underdog. Pass rival Beaumont’s enrollment has swelled past 3,000, making it an ideal new Citrus Belt League member. The Broncos have had proud moments in the past — particularly in boys basketball — but football has been average the last few years.
Banning won one of three games in the abbreviated 2020 season and had a combined record of 16-17 in 2017-19. It did make the playoffs in each of those years, losing the postseason opener each time.
“He’s got the experience — obviously — that we needed at this point,” Chann said. “We need someone strong to take over the program in the transition in crazy conditions.”
Like most teams, Tyree has had pandemic-related issues with having to quarantine players and losing valuable practice time. Tyree said he won his own battle with COVID-19 in December 2019, after thinking that “old age had caught up with me.”
He was already behind since his school-board approval wasn’t until the end of July. There was also a fire this summer that burned next to the school’s stadium. He built a new staff almost from scratch, finding one assistant who also coaches golf; another, he said, works as a security guard on campus.
Tyree will run his usual option offense. He pointed to senior lineman Xavier Davis and junior quarterback Salomon Nicolas as two players to potentially build around.
“I said, ‘What are you thinking?’” Walker said of when Tyree told him of the Banning job. “He loves coaching. For him, it’s a calling. If they let him stick around there for a while, he’ll do something there.”
Tyree said he splits time throughout the year between homes in Redlands and San Antonio with his wife, Mayra. Chann said Tyree is on campus an impressive 40-50 hours per week.
Above all, Tyree said, staying busy drives him.
“Doing nothing will kill you,” he said. “I believe that.”
