Mike Herrington is in his 25th year as the head coach of the Hart Indians.

Hart Indians head football coach Mike Herrington received 180,332 votes to be named the “Best High School Football Coach” in the western region by voters on usatodayhss.com.

The western region includes California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.

Six coaches from each of those states had won the voting in their state to then compete in this regional competition.  Voting happened over a nine-day period.  Wiley Allred from Royal High School in Royal, Washington, was second with 149,730 votes.

Herrington’s Hart Indians will be at home Friday night to play the Golden Valley Grizzlies in a Foothill League game.  The Indians are 6-0 in 2013 and ranked No. 1 in the CIF-SS Northern Division, No. 9 in the state.

Herrington is now one of eight regional finalists who will compete for the title of America’s Best High School Football Coach.  Voting in the national round begins at noon ET Monday and ends at noon ET Oct. 29, with all vote totals starting back at zero.  Go to www.usatodayhss.com to vote.  The champion is crowned based on most votes in the final round.

The athletic department of the winning coach will receive $2,000. Second through fifth places also receive cash prizes for the athletic departments: second ($1,000), third ($500), fourth ($250) and fifth ($100). All eight finalists receive banners for their schools.

The “Best Of” contest series launched last November with the best high school football rivalry competition, won by Brookfield vs. Marceline in Missouri. The teams celebrated their national title rivalry on Sept. 13 in Brookfield. In January, Hartford (Vt.) was crowned as the People’s Champion high school football team. And the monster of them all – the top high school mascot last spring – was won by the Centralia (Ill.) Orphans after 80 million total votes were cast during the competition.