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Great Falls High football coach to hang up his whistle; 'felt this was the right time'
Lee Vernoy
GreatFalls
He roamed the sidelines for four decades.
And on Friday, Mark Samson said it was the right time.
The head football coach at Great Falls High for the last six years, Samson submitted his resignation to Great Falls Public Schools athletic director Mike Henneberg Friday afternoon and will retire at the end of the current school term this summer.
"I just felt this was the right time," the 63-year-old Samson said. "I've had a great run ... great coaches, great kids, great family, and a great wife that I need to give back to!"
Samson, who has been selected to coach the East squad in the Montana East-West Shrine Football Game this June at Memorial Stadium, has been coaching high school and college football since 1981.
"My wife and I kind of talked about it a little bit this year," Samson said. "I don't know; it wasn't anything specific, there wasn't anything that triggered it.
"Somebody asked me if it had anything to do with getting beaten so badly by Missoula Sentinel (in the Class AA playoffs last November), and I said 'No.' About a year ago, I started looking at just how long I've been doing this thing, and I decided to see how this year goes.
"And you've followed us, Lee. You know we didn't have a good start, but (the other 2/3) of the year was pretty good.
"But Kelly (Mark's wife) is going to retire from teaching, and I kind of thought about it more and more. And I guess I just felt like this was about the time to do it. I'm not looking to get another coaching job or anything; I'll do something for a while. I've been looking into some things; there's a lot of things that Kelly and I want to do ... one would be to follow my son at Montana Tech (head coach Kyle Samson), and following a bunch of grandkids who are falling on an age now where they're busier with sports.
"We've got a beautiful place at Canyon Ferry Lake that we continue to improve every year, and we enjoy that immensely right now, and our family really loves going there, too."
Samson, a Helena native, just completed his sixth year coaching the Bison, leading them to the Class AA playoffs four consecutive years. He was an assistant coach Helena High, Broadwater High in Townsend, and Carroll College, then served as a head coach at Missoula Loyola, Helena Capital, Havre High, Montana State-Northern, and Great Falls High.
For Samson, this is his third time as head coach in the Shrine Game. It will also mark his 390th career game as a coach.
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"Not a lot of people get the opportunity to work with the things, and to work with the people and the kids that I have," Samson added. "Especially my own two sons. I love them to death and I still think they're two of the best football players I've ever coached in my life.
"And to work with people like my father-in-law, and in the early days, I've worked with guys like Mike Kramer and Chuck Harvey ... and then getting the opportunity to become a head coach ... at kind of a young age (Kelly confirmed Mark was just 28 when he became head coach at Loyola), but I've just been lucky everywhere I've gone."
We all know that sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. And Mark Samson is both.
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