Bill Blankenship (born December 12, 1956) is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

coach and former player. He is the current head high school football coach at Owasso High School in Owasso, OK. He was the head coach of the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a Private university, private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterian Church, although it is now nondenominational, and the campus ...

Golden Hurricane from 2011 through 2014.Eric Bailey
"Bill Blankenship named new Tulsa football coach"
''

Tulsa World The ''Tulsa World'' is an American daily newspaper. It serves the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma. The printed edition is the second-most circulated newspaper in the sta ...

'', January 14, 2011. Before entering the college ranks, Blankenship was a successful high school coach for over 20 years, with most of his success happening at Union High School in Tulsa, OK. He was named to the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2009., ''GTR Newspapers'', January 14, 2011.

Playing career

Blankenship played for the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane beginning in 1975 and served two stints as starting

quarterback The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...

, 1977 and 1979. While there, Blankenship played in the 1976 Independence Bowl.

High School Coaching career

Blankenship's high school head coaching career in Oklahoma included stints at Edmond Memorial High School, Union High School, Fayetteville High School, and Owasso High School.

Union High School

Blankenship served as the coach of Tulsa's Union High School for 14 years until 2005. There he compiled an overall 154-26 record. During his tenure, Union won eight consecutive district championships, qualified for the playoffs fourteen times, reached the quarterfinals ten times, participated in the state Class 6A championship seven times, and won the state title in 2002, 2004, and 2005. Union also amassed an unbroken home winning streak of 56 straight wins between the years 1997 and 2005.

Fayetteville High School

On June 7, 2016, it was announced that Blankenship had accepted the vacant head coaching position at Fayetteville, a Class 7A program in Arkansas. In his only season at the school, he led Fayetteville to the Class 7A Arkansas state title.

Owasso High School

On January 6, 2017, it was announced that Blankenship had accepted the vacant head coaching position at Owasso High School, a Class 6A-I program in

Owasso, Oklahoma Owasso () is a city in Rogers and Tulsa Counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and the largest northern suburb of Tulsa. The population was 39,328 persons as of the 2022 census estimate, compared to 28,915 at the 2010 census, a gain of 36 per ...

. Owasso went on to win the Class 6A-1 Oklahoma State Championship by defeating Union High School 21-14, breaking the 21-year Union-Jenks streak. In 2021, Blankenship led Owasso to an 8-3 record before losing to Broken Arrow High School, 41-40. In December 2023, Blankenship announced his decision to retire from coaching after seven seasons with Owasso. In December 2024, after a season away from Owasso High School, it was announced that Blankenship will be returning as the school's head high school football coach.

College Coaching career

University of Tulsa

In 2005 Blankenship decided that he wanted to pursue seriously his goal of coaching at the college level. Days after winning his third state title in four years, he resigned as Union's head coach (and, later, as its athletic director). At the time, Blankenship said that he was resigning, in part, because otherwise potential employers would not believe he would be willing to leave his successful position at Union. He spent the following year out of coaching, and then accepted

Tulsa Golden Hurricane The Tulsa Golden Hurricane are the athletic teams that represent the University of Tulsa. These teams are referred to as the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (or variously as TU or Tulsa). Before adopting the name Golden Hurricane in 1922, the Universit ...

head coach

Todd Graham Michael Todd Graham (born December 5, 1964) is an American college football coach and former player who serves as an offensive analyst for TCU. He was most recently the head football coach at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Playing car ...

's offer to become receivers coach at Tulsa. After the 2010 season, Graham left Tulsa to become the head coach at Pitt. After a brief search, Blankenship was named Tulsa's new head coach on January 14, 2011. Blankenship's first two seasons as head coach were marked by success, including a conference championship and Liberty Bowl victory in 2012. But over the next two seasons, Tulsa won a total of only five games, and Tulsa fired Blankenship on December 1, 2014.

Personal life

Blankenship and his wife Angie are the parents of three sons: Josh, Caleb, and Adam, all of whom played football in high school and college. Josh Blankenship played quarterback at Tulsa before transferring to

Eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the H ...

, where he was a second-team Division I-AA All-American. He later played

arena football Arena football is a variety of gridiron football designed to be played indoors. The game is played on a smaller field than American or Canadian football, designed to fit in the same surface area as a standard North American ice hockey rink, an ...

, including three years as quarterback of the

Tulsa Talons Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa ...

; after working as an assistant coach at Union and elsewhere, in December 2010 he was named head coach at Muskogee High School. Adam Blankenship played at

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

and Illinois State, was an assistant coach at Union, and in 2011 joined his father's new coaching staff at Tulsa.Eric Bailey
"TU completes hiring football coaching staff"
''

'', January 22, 2011.

Head coaching record

College

Awards

*Merv Johnson Integrity in College Coaching Award, Oklahoma Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (2008). *Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, 2009. *Conference USA Coach of the Year, 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blankenship, Bill 1956 births Living people American football quarterbacks Tulsa Golden Hurricane football coaches Tulsa Golden Hurricane football players High school football coaches in Oklahoma High school football coaches in Arkansas People from Spiro, Oklahoma Coaches of American football from Oklahoma Players of American football from Oklahoma