Veteran Ryan football coach Stan Mueggenborg has stepped away from the program after 12 seasons as the head of the Cowboy program.
Mueggenborg will remain on the faculty at Ryan and will coach fast-pitch softball this fall and slow-pitch softball next spring.
Tony Tomberlin, who served as an assistant under Mueggenborg for all 12 seasons, will take over the head coaching reins and it is hoped the transition will be seamless.
Tomberlin will be the 33rd different head coach in school history.
In 2006, Mueggenborg took over the coaching duties of the football program at Ryan after coaching stops at Wichita Falls Notre Dame and Grandfield. He was a football assistant at Grandfield for 19 years.
There are a number of accomplishments for Mueggenborg in his 12 years at the helm of the Cowboys.
Mueggenborg is the longest tenured coach in program history and no one else comes close.
Ryan’s first football coach, G.J. Williams coached nine seasons at Ryan, but that was over three different time periods.
The only other football coach to come remotely close to Mueggenborg’s tenure would be Raymon West, who coached football on three different occasions totaling seven years.
Mueggenborg will end his career at Ryan with an 81-52 mark. That is the most wins by any Ryan coach in school history.
The winning percentage of .609 is the third best among coaches who have served at Ryan for at least three years or more.
In his first season as head coach of the Cowboys, Mueggenborg directed the squad to an 11-2 record and an appearance in the state semifinals where the Cowboys were upset by Temple, 26-7.
In 2009, Mueggenborg coached the Cowboys to a 10-0 record in the regular season and then helped.
In 2009, Mueggenborg coached the Cowboys to a 10-0 record in the regular season and then helped Ryan make another semifinal appearance where the Cowboys fell to eventual state champion Canton, 42-8.
The 2009 campaign is one of only four seasons in school history that Ryan posted an undefeated record in the regular season and each season had a different head coach.
Those two semifinal appearances are part of nine semifinal contests for Ryan and only Phil Elerick has coached more state semifinal games at Ryan than Mueggenborg.
In his last season, Mueggenborg helped the Cowboys to a 6-5 mark and a playoff appearance that ended a two-year drought of post-season play for Ryan.
Mueggenborg led the Cowboys to nine playoff appearances in his 12 seasons and has two district titles to his credit.
The Ryan teams that Mueggenborg coached were always highly competitive, hard-nosed and hard-hitting.
The Cowboy squads coached by the veteran coach did not quit – even in the midst of tremendous adversity such as was experienced in the 2015 and 2016 seasons when the Cowboys won only three total games.
Mueggenborg was also the baseball coach for 11 years and his teams won two conference tournament titles and one district championship. Mueggenborg gave up the baseball coaching duties last season to coach slow-pitch softball
Another noted achievement for Mueggenborg during his coaching reign was the construction of a new stadium for Ryan in 2008. The metal bleachers and press box replaced the stadium seating that had been in existence since 1947.
Tomberlin, who has primarily been in charge of the defense during his 11 years as an assistant, will face a tough challenge in returning the Cowboys to the playoffs.
Ryan is assigned to District B-4 for the next two seasons and will face stiff competition in the upcoming season from Central High, Wilson, Waurika and Empire.
However, Tomberlin will be one of five new coaches among the district schools. Only Central High will have the same coach from the 2017 season.
The Cowboys have been engaged in summer conditioning and Tomberlin noted that those who have been participating have been working hard.
Ryan has been the only coaching responsibility for Tomberlin and he has served in nearly every sport.
He has been the head coach for boys’ and girls’ track for nine seasons where he coached one individual state champion and six individual regional champions.
In 2009, he was the head coach of the Cowgirl basketball squad for the second half of the season. He also was the boys’ coach for the 2010-2012 seasons and he led the Cowboys to a pair of district titles.
For the past 12 seasons he has also served as the assistant for baseball and was named the high school principal in 2014.
The Cowboy football season gets underway on August 24 when Ryan will welcome Snyder to Bob Givens Sports Complex.
