Without question, CJ Hamilton is more than appreciative of his recent inductions into the Kansas State High School Activities Association and Kansas Shrine Bowl Hall of Fames, both occurring this year.
 
But without question, Hamilton would much rather those honors had come sometime in the future. That’s because the legendary Silver Lake football coach quite frankly would still love to be on the sidelines on Friday nights, coaching the game he devoted more than 50 years of his life to, be it playing or coaching.
 
Hamilton retired in 2021, but not because he wanted to. Because he had to.
 
“It wasn’t fair to the kids, that was the main thing,” Hamilton said of his retirement after the 2021 season – one in which he’d spent the season coaching remotely because of health complications from an April 2020 accident at his farm. “I’d done it for 47 years and still loved doing it. But it was being able to be involved and that season I wasn’t. Not being around the kids and the other coaches, not being there in person, there was a disconnect and it wasn’t fair to them.
 
“They were getting an avatar coach.”
 
The fact that the 73-year-old Hamilton would throw out the term “avatar” simply demonstrates that he’s still in touch with this generation and would have no problem replicating the success he enjoyed during his 47-year career as head coach of the Silver Lake program. 
 
And that’s some of what makes his Hall of Fame inductions – Hamilton was honored prior to Friday’s 19-6 win over Perry-Lecompton for his KSHSAA honor – a bit bittersweet. 
 
“It was hard where you don’t get to finish on your terms,” Hamilton said. “I felt like I still had some years to go. That’s the hard part. Before the accident, my energy was good, I was active and nothing was really slowing me down.”
 

 
But the accident at his farm in 2020 not only brought about a premature end to his coaching career, but almost his life as well.
 
In April of 2020, Hamilton was working on his farm when he was kicked by a cow in his right leg. He initially suffered compartment syndrome and suffered from internal bleeding. He endured multiple setbacks in his recovery and nearly a year after the accident, Hamilton developed a severe infection that required a knee replacement surgery.
 
That was only the start. He continued to battle infections in not only his knee but shoulder and other body parts that led to his retirement in 2021. The knee joint that was replaced in 2021 developed an even more severe infection that attached to the artificial joint and kept him isolated at home or in the hospital for nearly two years as he battled it.
 
Eventually, it got to the point where his doctor delivered some tough news to swallow in the fall of 2023.
 
“He said, ‘You’ve got one of two options, you’re going to die of sepsis or you’ll have to have it amputated,’” Hamilton said. “That was a tough decision. That’s life-altering.”
 
In December 2023, he had his right leg amputated from the knee down.
 
Hamilton now has a prosthetic and walks with the help of forearm crutches. It’s allowed him to get back out in the community and back out to the football field. He was able to start attending games again last fall, and that certainly was something that not only lifted his spirits but was good for his soul.
 
“I really had missed the contact with the kids and other coaches – it was just an empty space,” he said. “It was great just to see the kids excited, the community excited – stuff that took us so long to build here. Back in the 1970s, it wasn’t that way.”
 
Indeed, prior to Hamilton’s return to his alma mater to take over as head coach in 1973, Silver Lake had endured a winless 1971 season followed by a 2-7 mark in 1972. Hamilton went 4-5 in his first year, but then posted seasons of 7-2, 9-1 and 11-2 before leaving for a two-year stint as a coach at Washburn.
 
When he returned in 1978, he was there to stay. And win.
 
In 47 seasons as Silver Lake’s head coach, Hamilton guided the Eagles to the playoffs 40 times as well as winning 39 Mid-East League titles. Silver Lake reached the state championship game a state-record 18 times, including a remarkable streak of seven straight seasons from 2002-08 and 11 times in a 12-year stretch from 2002-13.
 
Of those 18 championship game appearances, Silver Lake won eight titles, which at the time was the most by any coach in state history, but since has been passed by Randy Dreiling, who has 10 titles at St. Thomas Aquinas and Hutchinson.
 
And then there’s the number that jumps off the resume. With 447 career victories (with only 98 losses), Hamilton not only is the all-time winningest coach in Kansas history, he’s nearly 100 wins over the next-winningest coach, St. Mary’s Colgan’s Chuck Smith, who was 354-78 in his career.
 
The winningest active coach is Dreiling, who is now 292-105 after Aquinas improved to 3-0 on Friday night.
 
“I know the number, but I don’t really reflect on the number,” Hamilton said of his coaching victory record, which ranks 17th nationally all-time. “It’s funny, the things I remember the most are certain practices or certain games, certain situations that might seem little in the big picture. You might ask me the score of one of our games with Rossville when Mark Luedtke or Hal Taliaferro were there and I couldn’t tell you that, but I remember the interactions with them.
 
“And that’s the thing, something that draws me to be humble. You look at it, Roger Barta’s gone, Luedtke’s gone, Taliaferro’s gone. Those were guys I looked up to and respected and they’re not with us any more.”
 
Hamilton very well could have joined that list of his peer coaches who have passed away recently with Barta, the former Smith Center legend, and Luedtke each passing away this summer. But he’s battled through not only the most recent health scare but a quintuple bypass heart surgery three months before the start of the 2009 season and having nearly every major joint in his body replaced at some point in his life to still be going as strong as he possibly could be.
 
“I praise the Lord for that,” he said. “I would be missing my (eight) grandkids and what they’re doing in their lives.”
 
And he’d be missing the game he still not only loves, but has a keen acumen for when he’s watching a game, whether it’s his beloved Eagles or the college or pro game on television.
 
“He’s just kind of lived the game,” said Warren Bledsoe, who served as Hamilton’s offensive coordinator for nearly 40 years of his career, retiring at the same time Hamilton did. “I’d be watching football on a Sunday afternoon and would get a text from him, ‘Hey, did you see what that team just did?’ That was his brain, that was just how he was wired. He was football 24-7 and just amazing to work for.”
 
Bledsoe wasn’t alone in his loyalty to Hamilton. Fellow assistants such as Mark Workman and Loren Ziegler also were there for the bulk of Hamilton’s tenure and that, Hamilton acknowledged, was a huge key to Silver Lake’s run of success for nearly five decades.
 
“That’s a big part of what made our program,” he said. “For the kids, there was consistency. I had assistants who were with me a long time and the kids knew what to expect and we didn’t deviate from those expectations. Those guys were always there. They put in the same amount of hours that I did. These (Hall of Fame honors) put my name on it, but they were right there with me and deserve just as much of the credit.
 
“You take a look at the assistant coaches I’ve had. Dale Sample, Tom Michael, Kenny Darting, Jim Lindstrom. And then of course, Warren Bledsoe for what, 39 years? Ziegler was there off and on, Mark Workman. Those guys stayed. And that’s special.”
 
Another key, as Bledsoe eluded to, was Hamilton’s ever-processing football mind. For much of the early part of his coaching career, football offenses in Kansas were in more cases than not, ground and pound. A three yards and a cloud of dust mentality.
 
But somewhat fittingly, the Eagles’ offense often took flight under Hamilton, who embraced the passing game as a means to success long before it became en vogue to the point where the spread has become commonplace at all levels of football.
 
“When I started, it was all smash mouth and double tight,” he said. “I was raised in the Larry Elliott Era at Washburn University and he tried to preach about balance. You can’t throw it 60 times like they do now with all the great athletes they have. You’re not always going to get that at the high school level. But I thought we needed to balance it out.
 
“Kudos to those coaches like (Holton’s Brooks) Barta who say, ‘We’re going to run the ball and you can’t stop it.’ I never felt like we were that type. What we did, a lot of kids touched the ball and had fun and defenses took a little while to catch up to it.”
 
Even today, Hamilton’s football mind is still going full speed.
 
“For me analytically, it’s the same. I watch the game the same way I did as a coach,” he said. “I try to keep my mind active with the Xs and Os. My mind is still good enough where I can look at situations and analyze it. I don’t know if the analysis is correct, but in my mind it is.”
 
For all the victories and all the league and state titles, Hamilton said his fondest memories really have nothing to do with that. Instead, it’s the bonds he’s made in the game.
 
“I remember most the interaction with the kids at practice,” he said. “I remember games, but you’re so mentally involved in the game itself that you can’t really be too over-emotional about things. In practice, you can be more involved, teaching and touching the kids and trying to reach them to make them the best they can be. That’s what I remember the most.”
 
Which Bledsoe said is what set Hamilton apart as a coach as much as anything else.
 
“It was his ability to relate to the kids and they were just willing to follow him no matter what happened,” Bledsoe said. “His relationship was stern, but loving at the same time. He could be so hard on you that it was unbelievable, but at the same time they knew how much he cared about them. That gave him that ability to really be a tremendous leader. They worked so hard for him.”
 
A Hall of Famer for not just the KSHSAA and Shrine Bowl, but also Shawnee County and more than likely someday the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, Hamilton knows exactly what it means to him.
 
“That people appreciated what we accomplished here,” he said. “And again, when I say we, that’s the emphasis because it wasn’t one guy. It takes a community that’s committed and sacrificed so much to allow kids to succeed. That’s how you touch a generation, you get the buy-in from the kids and community with a commonality. And that’s what we built here”