Routt Catholic loses winningest football coach, faces two coaching openings

Barry Creviston’s departure leaves Routt Catholic with more than a football vacancy. It also puts parents, players and administrators in Jacksonvile and Morgan County in the middle of a broader reset, with summer workouts, offseason planning and two major varsity jobs now hanging over a small athletics department.

Creviston announced on Facebook that he was stepping down as head football coach, ending a second stint that helped define Routt’s modern identity. WLDS reported that he was the winningest head football coach in school history, with a 71-64 record across two runs, from 2003 through 2008 and again from 2018 through last season. In that span, he led the Rockets to two conference championships and eight playoff appearances.

His first tenure set the tone. Routt went 42-20 from 2003 through 2008, reached the IHSA playoffs five times, advanced to the Class 1A quarterfinals in 2006 and made it to the second round in 2007. When he returned in 2018 after coaching at Johnsburg High School, he immediately ended a six-year playoff drought, underscoring how quickly his presence changed the program’s trajectory.

The timing makes this loss harder for Routt. The Rockets finished 1-8 last season, so the school is replacing its coach after a difficult year rather than after a playoff push. Creviston also served as athletic director and dean of students, which means the change reaches beyond football into scheduling, staffing and the coordination of other sports.

That matters for families who follow Routt athletics closely. The school fields football, boys basketball and girls basketball, along with other sports, and it is now dealing with two head coaching vacancies at once. Will Whalen already had announced earlier this spring that he was retiring as boys basketball head coach, while Creviston’s wife, Val Creviston, is set to take over as girls basketball coach next year. The combination leaves the athletic department with major decisions to make before the next school year and summer workouts begin.

Routt’s public staff page still listed Barry Creviston as dean of students and athletic director, a sign that the school’s official materials will need updating as the transition moves ahead. For a program built on continuity as much as on wins, the next hire will shape not only football practice, but the direction of Routt athletics heading into the fall.