Legendary football coach Andree dies

Ed Koch and Spencer Patterson

Tuesday, March 14, 2000 | 9:45 a.m.

Kenneth H. Andree, the legendary Boulder City High School football coach of the 1950s and '60s, who later as mayor of Boulder City spearheaded the drive to get the municipal golf course built, has died. He was 70.

Andree, who had cancer, died Saturday at his El Camino Way home that overlooked the fourth tee of the golf course he helped make a reality.

A private service for the Southern Nevada resident of 45 years will be at the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City. Palm Mortuary handled arrangements.

Between 1957 and 1966 Andree coached five Eagles football teams and three track squads to state titles. Two of his champion football teams went undefeated.

Last month Andree was inducted into the Boulder City High School Hall of Fame.

Andree was city councilman from 1971 to 1979 and was appointed mayor by his fellow councilmen in 1973.

"He influenced so many lives at the high school, city hall and at the golf course for so many years," said Danny Mayes, a 1962 graduate of Boulder City High, who had Andree as a physical education teacher his freshman year.

"I was a smart aleck in those days. He took me aside and said: 'I knew all four of your older brothers and they were class acts -- what's wrong with you? Stand up and be a Mayes.'

"After that my attitude changed, and I went from a potential town hoodlum to a responsible person. I'm glad I got to tell him years later that he changed my life."

Today, Mayes is a street supervisor for the city.

"Ken was an outstanding coach who developed the skills of hundreds of Boulder City youngsters," said former two-term Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, publisher of the Boulder City News. "He was a living example for every young athlete and coach in Nevada."

Bob Northridge, athletic director at Boulder City High, called Andree a humble person.

"Ken is a legend around here," Northridge said. "He also was a private person, very humble. He didn't like getting awards."

Born July 14, 1929, in South Dakota, Andree graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1951, majoring in industrial arts and physical education. He was the tailback on the football team and a high hurdler on the track team. In 1987 he was inducted into that university's hall of fame.

After two years in the Army during the Korean War, Andree returned to the University of South Dakota and in 1955 earned his master's degree in secondary administration.

That fall he joined the faculty at Boulder City High and served two years under head football coach Gene "Buster" Schultz, who also became a local football legend, leading the school to 19 straight victories and the 1955 and '56 state Class A football titles.

"Ken was very organized and very disciplined," Schultz said of his longtime friend. "He introduced the Delaware Wing-T (offense) and they ran that for all those years there. He produced a lot of scoring records."

After a 5-3 first season as head coach, Andree's 1958 squad went 8-1, including a thrilling 7-6 victory over arch rival Basic High of Henderson, and won the Class A state title. In 1961 Boulder went 10-0, pulling out a 21-20 squeaker over Basic and crushing Lovelock 47-14 for a second Class A title.

"He was a very strict man, but everybody respected him and they liked him," said Ron Resler, a 1962 Boulder City High graduate who today is the school's assistant track coach. "Boulder had only around 320 students back then and we played larger (California, Utah and Arizona) schools and beat them."

Boulder went 7-2-1 in 1962 and 10-0 in 1963, winning two more state crowns. From the late fall of 1962 until early autumn of '64, Andree's teams had an unbeaten streak of 18 games, flawed only by a 13-13 tie against Hawthorne late in '62.

After winning the 1964 Class A Southern Nevada championship with a 7-2 mark, Boulder City lost the state title game to Yerington 20-0 -- the third and last time one of Andree's teams was shut out (the others were 6-0 to Moapa Valley and 15-0 to Needles, Calif., both in 1959).

In 1965 Boulder went 9-1 with shutout victories over Clark (60-0), Valley (54-0), Moapa (33-0) and Needles (20-0), and won the Class AA title with a 39-21 triumph over Fallon. Andree's football teams shut out 15 opponents in nine seasons.

Andree's track and field teams won state titles in 1957, 1965 and '66.

When UNLV announced it would field its first football team in 1968, Andree applied for the head coaching job but lost out to Bill Ireland.

In 1971 Andree was elected councilman when Boulder City had just 5,000 residents. He was a pro-growth candidate in a controlled-growth town.

"Dad was glad Boulder City grew to today's population of about 15,000," Kirk Andree of Reno said. "He wanted more restaurants, more stores and more services for the city's residents, and the town needed to grow to get those type of businesses."

In the 1970s Andree also served as president of the Nevada League of Cities and as a member of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board. Andree retired from the Clark County School District as junior high school administrator in 1985.

In addition to his son, Andree is survived by a daughter, Shauna Andree of Portland, Ore.; a brother, George Andree of Watertown, S.D.; and two grandchildren.