In July of 2018, Milano High School quarterback Kathen Funburg was preparing for his senior season. Three years and two states later, he is now the youngest head football coach in the United States after accepting the job at Oklahoma’s Prue High School earlier this month.
Following graduation from Milano High School, he continued his football career at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas. However, attending a private university that cost close to $42,700 per academic year wasn’t something he deemed feasible.
With his parents Chris and Amy now in Eufala, Oklahoma, he enrolled at nearby East Central Oklahoma University to be near them while continuing his education.
Adjusting to his new life in the Sooner State, he started making calls to area schools to see if anyone needed a part-time coach.
This led to him landing at Sasakwa High where he spent 2020. This past April, he was contacted by Zane Rose, the head coach at Prue High School near Tulsa. Rose recruited Funburg to be the offensive coordinator for the upcoming season.
Things changed over the summer when Rose contacted him again to tell him that he was leaving Prue.
“He was like ‘hey man, I’m leaving’,” Funburg laughed. “And he asked ‘would you be interested in taking over the program?’ ”
“I told him ‘absolutely’ and about two hours later the superintendent calls me and asks if I would be interested in being the head coach at Prue and I said the same thing.”
A week later, the 21-year-old’s hiring was approved by the Prue Public Schools’ board of trustees.
“A week goes by, I get approved by the board and the next thing I know, I’m the youngest head coach in the United States.” Funburg said. That assertion is backed up by an article from High School Football America in February 2020 that said the youngest high school football coach was a 22-year-old man in California.
Since being hired, the Milam County native says he’s received a lot of support from the coaching network in Oklahoma.
“I’ve had guys that have coached 25 years and guys that have coached for one year reach out to me,” he said. “All of them have asked me to let them know if I ever need help.”
“Of course, there will be people that will say ‘he’s young, he doesn’t know what he’s doing’ which, at times, will be true.”
PHS, which had an enrollment of 97 students in grades 9-12 during the 2020-21 school year, plays eight-man football. The game, which doesn’t exist in Texas, is an adjustment for Funburg, who played 11-man football his entire life.
“Eight man was totally new for me,” he said. “Especially being from Texas where you have your six-man and your 11-man football.”
“Ultimately, you’re missing two tackles and you’re missing a back. It’s not totally different but it’s faster and there’s more space because there’s less bodies on the field,” he said. “There’s also a mercy rule when a team is up by 45 points. But other than that, it’s just small town football.”
Taking over a team that went 1-7 last season, Funburg says he hopes to help push the team to a 5-5 or 6-4 record this fall and that he will have to have a unique approach with his players due to his age.
“The approach I’ll have is a little unorthodox because these kids are 17-18 years old and I’m only 21,” he said. “The relationship I want to build with them will be more like the older brother mentality and not like the father figure role that a lot of coaches may have.”
“A week goes by, I get approved by the board and the next thing I know, I’m the youngest head coach in the United States.”
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