Webster City native and former Iowa Barnstormers coach John Gregory has died at age 84. Gregory, who graduated from Webster City High School and played for Hall of Fame coach Harley Rollinger, got his first coaching job as a coach at North Junior High School in Fort Dodge, before becoming head coach at the former Lake City High School in Calhoun County. Gregory then came to notoriety as an assistant at Iowa Central Community College. There, Gregory coached future number-one pick and Super Bowl champion John Matuszak.
From there, Gregory spent 10 seasons as head coach at South Dakota State, then at the Division II level, where he finished with a record of 55-50-3. Gregory then spent a season as the offensive coordinator at UNI in 1982, before taking his first job north of the border in the Canadian Football League as offensive line coach for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, which led him to taking the job as the head coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Gregory reached the summit twice in his career in the CFL, his first time in 1984 as offensive line coach at Winnipeg, when the Blue Bombers won the 72nd Grey Cup. The second time was in his 3rd season in Saskatchewan, defeating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the 77th Grey Cup 43-40. He was fired midway through the 1991 season, before taking over as coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where he finished with a 24-40 record and 2 postseason appearances.
In 1995, Gregory returned to his native Iowa as head coach of the Iowa Barnstormers, where he was paired with former UNI quarterback Kurt Warner. In their 3 seasons together, the pair went 30-10 and made back-to-back appearances in the ArenaBowl. Warner was signed by the St. Louis Rams after the 1997 season, but Gregory remained with the Barnstormers until their move to New York in 2001, as he remained head coach until the end of 2003. From there, Gregory had two short stints as head coach of the Carolina Cobras and Arkansas Twisters, before returning to Iowa to once again lead the Barnstormers in the AF2 league. He would spend 4 seasons at the helm in Des Moines, before leaving in 2011 and retiring for good in 2012.
In January 2022, Gregory was interviewed by Sports Director Quinn Douglas ahead of the showing of “American Underdog” at the Webster Theater in Webster City, as Gregory had recently moved back to Webster City.
Services will take place on January 31, 2023 at 2 PM at McLean Funeral Home in Gastonia, North Carolina. The Gregory family is requesting that attendees wear their favorite football jersey.