Jim Cantafio is the all-time winningest football coach in Conestoga Valley history. He was the Buckskins’ head coach for 15 seasons (1980-94), during which his teams went 125-40-2. CV won the section title six times under Cantafio (1981-85, 1991). The 1991 team also won the PIAA District 3 Class AAA title, the AAA Eastern PA title, and were the first Lancaster County school to advance to a PIAA Championship Game, where it lost to Erie Strong Vincent, 29-20.
All told, Cantafio served 32 seasons as a head football coach, compiling an overall record of 263-95-2. His teams have won 11 league championships, had three undefeated seasons and 3 12-win seasons. His teams won district championships at three different schools (Conestoga Valley, Wyoming Valley West and Wilson) in the 1990s. He was named league Coach of the Year eight times, as well as PIAA District Three and PIAA District Two Coach of the Year. He was the head coach of Pennsylvania’s team in the Big 33 Classic in 1998.
Cantafio was inducted into the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Conestoga Valley Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005. He served as president of the PSFCA in 2004-05.
Cantafio is still coaching as an assistant at Coatesville High School, and is also a noted quarterback coach on the national level. He is the lone PA coach to have two quarterbacks selected to the prestigious Nike Elite 11 and in 2013, he was the QB coach at the Under Armour All-American Game.
He is one of only two L-L League coaches to rank in the top 40 of all-time winningest coaches in PA (the other: Mike Williams).