Coach
Grand Island Central Schools
Gene J. Masters is the winningest football coach in Western New York history and ranks among the top in the state in both football and baseball. From 1957-2000, Masters coached football and baseball at Brocton High School (‘57-‘62) and then at Grand Island High School (’63-2000). 
Gene’s coaching career was successful in 1957 at Brocton High School where he captured two baseball championships and three football titles. In 1963, Masters became the first varsity football and baseball coach at Grand Island High School and immediately turned both programs into highly respected ones on the field.
Over a 44 year career as Grand Island’s football coach he compiled a record of 248-107-8 ranking him #1 in wins among Western New York coaches and sixth in New York State. His teams captured 19 championships, won four consecutive Section VI Class B titles (1989-92), and made ten playoff appearances. Gene coached 35 All-Western New York All Stars and had three players earn Player of the Year honors. His 1973 team was one of the greatest teams in the history of Western New York football going 8-0 that season and outscoring opponents 253-7.
In 1991, Grand Island honored Coach Masters by naming the football field “Masters Field” in his honor. That same decade he was named Western New York Coach of the Decade following Western New York Coach of the Year plaudits in 1978 and 1989.
Coach Masters also achieved great success on the baseball diamond. He compiled 440 career wins, 15 championships, ten league crowns and five sectional titles. Along the way Gene coached five players drafted in the Major League Baseball amateur draft and in 1991, he was named Coach of the Year by the Niagara Frontier League. A former Section VI baseball chairman, Coach Masters was inducted into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, then in 2002, he was inducted into the Tonawanda Sports Hall of Fame.
Gene was a graduate of Tonawanda High School and University of Buffalo in 1957. He also fought in the Korean War from 1952-54.
Inducted into NYSPHSAA Hall of Fame in 2008
* Posthumously awarded
