{"id":28529,"date":"2023-01-03T18:14:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T23:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=28529"},"modified":"2023-01-03T18:14:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T23:14:10","slug":"bill-castle-retires-as-lakeland-hs-football-coach-after-47-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/01\/03\/bill-castle-retires-as-lakeland-hs-football-coach-after-47-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Castle retires as Lakeland HS football coach after 47 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland HS football fans knew this day would come, but likely were wishing it didn&#8217;t have to.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2600\" height=\"2101\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2600px) 100vw, 2600px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Bill-Castle.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28530\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bill Castle has retired as Lakeland&#8217;s football coach after 47 years at the helm of one of the state&#8217;s best programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Castle said he made his decision Monday night and told the school Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"707\" height=\"413\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 707px) 100vw, 707px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2021-bill-castle-headcoach.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28531\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2021-bill-castle-headcoach.jpg 707w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/2021-bill-castle-headcoach-300x175.jpg 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Castle retires as the winningest football coach in Florida history with 473 career wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This past season, Castle led the Dreadnaughts to a 14-0 record, their eighth state title and seventh title in an undefeated season. The only year Lakeland lost a game in a state championship season came in 1986, the first year the Dreadnaughts won a state title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The eight titles, which came in &#8217;86, &#8217;96, &#8217;99, &#8217;04, &#8217;05, &#8217;06, &#8217;18 and &#8217;22, are the most in Florida from a public school.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"728\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Bill-Castle-2.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28532\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Castle is a member of the Polk County Sports Hall of Fame, the FHSAA Hall of Fame and was selected the FHSAA Coach of the Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lakeland HS football fans knew this day would come, but likely were wishing it didn&#8217;t have to. Bill Castle has retired as Lakeland&#8217;s football coach after 47 years at the&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[4178],"class_list":["post-28529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-schools-sports","tag-bill-castle-retires-as-lakeland-hs-football-coach-after-47-years"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}