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Honoring a Bulldog legend
Cornfoot night
Turlock High basketball players, alumni and coaches come out and celebrate former boys basketball coach Dough Cornfoot on Friday evening during halftime (CANDY PADILLA/The Journal).

Turlock High honored longtime boys basketball coach Doug Cornfoot during a halftime ceremony at Friday night’s Downey-Turlock Central Catholic Athletic League finale.

Cornfoot, the school’s all-time winningest coach with a career mark off 229-172, led the Bulldogs for 14 seasons. His teams won three conference championships and qualified for the playoffs in 12 of those 14 campaigns, while making one trip to Sacramento’s Arco Arena in 2010. The Bulldogs reached the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I semifinals that year, losing to Franklin (Elk Grove), 70-66. It was the first of four consecutive playoff losses to the Wildcats from 2010 to 2013.

About 20 of Cornfoot’s assistants from years past joined him on the court as he was presented with a plaque in honor of his service to the program.

“I’m the luckiest guy to have had a great school to work at and a great school to coach at,” Cornfoot told the crowd. “I want to thank the community, which would come out and watch our games even if they didn’t have kids in the program. That was awesome.”

Cornfoot went on to thank the Turlock High administration, his assistants, and the Dog Pound, which he hailed as “the best damn cheering section in the entire Sac-Joaquin Section.”

Cornfoot coached the freshman girls squad this season and he is a special education instructor at the high school.

A graduate of Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., Cornfoot first gained notoriety in Turlock as a member off the Stanislaus State basketball team that reached the Division III Final Four in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Warriors lost to eventual champion Wabash College 68-64 in the national semifinal.

Cornfoot, who teamed with Pitman head coach Harvey Marable and former Pitman athletic director Dave Walls at CSUS, knew early on that coaching was in his future.

“I was an honor to do what I love to do,” said Cornfoot, who coached at Delhi High School for two seasons before taking over in Turlock. “And you’re kind of oblivious the effect you have on people because you’re just so busy going about your business.”