How rare is Mars football coach Scott Heinauer's 200 wins with one team?

It depends on how wide a region you choose to look at and at what point in history.

Heinauer became the 33rd WPIAL football coach to reach the 200-win plateau. But he became the first one to ever do so in Butler County.

Former Freeport coach Don Early won 200 games in his career, but some of those wins came with Bell Township and Washington Township before he took the helm of the Yellowjackets.

Before Heinauer, Butler's Art Bernardi had the county record for most football wins with one team. He won 179 with the Golden Tornado.

Western Pennsylvania is filled with legendary names who have secured more than 200 victories. Jim Render with Upper St. Clair, Joe Hamilton with Blackhawk, Terry Verrelli with Wilmington, George Novak with Woodland Hills, Jack McCurry with North Hills and Bill Cherpak with Thomas Jefferson are just a few of those.

All of those guys picked up victory No. 200 quite some time ago.

Central Clarion's Larry Wiser began this season with 233 career wins. North Allegheny's Art Walker Jr. began this year with 207, not all of those being with the Tigers, of course.

But let's turn the calendar forward a few years here.

Heinauer is in his 29th year of coaching. Freeport's John Gaillot is second among active coaches in longevity in the county. He's in his 13th year.

As coaching legends retire, there aren't too many longtime head coaches left in their wake.

Times have changed that way.

Mike Zmiljanac was basically run out of Aliquippa. North Hills and Upper St. Clair tried doing the same to McCurry and Render, respectively.

High school coaching has become a difficult thing to do in the same place for a long time. No. 1, you have to win. No. 2, you have to keep the parents and school board on your side.

No. 3, you have to want to do it for a very long time to attain 200 wins at the same school.

Heinauer has led Mars to the playoffs in each of the last 16 years. That's an achievement in its own right.

Wherever that win total stands when he retires, Heinauer's Butler County mark should stand for a long time, if not forever.

Appreciate guys like him while they're here.

There aren't many of them left.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle