Cocoa High football: seven state championships since 2008

Cocoa High School has won seven Florida state football championships, all since 2008, according to the Florida High School Athletic Association’s championship records. No other Brevard school in those records has more. The Tigers won three straight from 2008 to 2010, a fourth in 2016, and three more in a row from 2022 to 2024.

The finals

Season	Class	Result
2008	3A	Cocoa 7, Godby 6 (overtime)
2009	2A	Cocoa 27, Glades Central 13
2010	2A	Cocoa 14, Glades Central 13
2016	4A	Cocoa 31, Bolles 17
2017	4A	Raines 13, Cocoa 10
2018	4A	Raines 27, Cocoa 13
2021	4A	Cardinal Gibbons 21, Cocoa 19
2022	2S	Cocoa 38, Florida High 31
2023	2S	Cocoa 20, Bradford 6
2024	2A	Cocoa 38, Gadsden County 27

Two of the first three titles came by a single point, and the 2017 and 2021 finals were lost by three and two. John Wilkinson coached the first four title teams and Ryan Schneider the last three.

Among Brevard’s champions

The FHSAA lists state titles for other Brevard schools: Melbourne in 1966; Merritt Island in 1972, 1978 and 1979; Titusville in 1982 and 1983; Palm Bay in 2000 and 2002; and Rockledge in 2001 and 2002. Cocoa’s seven are more than any of them.

One Cocoa High

From 1947 to 1968 Cocoa had two high schools, separated by race. Monroe High School, the Black high school that grew out of the 1923 Rosenwald school on Blake Avenue, closed in 1968 as Brevard’s schools integrated, and its students went to Cocoa High, according to the National Register nomination for the old school. That story is on our Cocoa schools page.

Further Reading

• Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon