12-19-2003, 08:44 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Location: in the backwoods
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Texas Coaching legend passes away
I realize that this may not generate much interest on this forum, but I thought I should share this. Gordon Wood was a high school football coach in a small town in West Texas. I got to know him one day when we sat next to each other on a campaign bus as it travelled to several small towns. He told me stories about the man running for Congress that had played for his team many years ago. I knew who he was, but was told by many that day that I was talking to a living legend. Almost as many people we met wanted to talk to this coach as wanted to talk to the politician. His mind was sharper and more witty, and his handshake firmer than I expected from a man in his eighties. Not many small town high school coachs influence coaching greats like Bear Bryant or Bill Parcells. Here is a Dallas Morning News article paying tribute to the late Gordon Wood.
link
Quote:
Legendary coach Gordon Wood dies at 89
Famed Texas coach inspired greatness
01:28 AM CST on Thursday, December 18, 2003
By DAVID MCNABB / The Dallas Morning News
Gordon Wood, whose winning in Texas high school football was matched only by his reputation as a teacher on the field, died Wednesday at Abilene Medical Center. Mr. Wood, 89, had struggled with bronchial, heart and kidney problems.
Mr. Wood won nine state championships as a head coach while compiling a 396-91-15 record from 1940 through his retirement in 1985. He won seven titles in 26 years at Brownwood in Central Texas.
When he retired, Mr. Wood was the winningest high school coach in the country but has since been passed. Pilot Point coach G.A. Moore passed Mr. Wood as the state's winningest coach last season.
"When I think of Texas high school football, I think of Coach Wood," said Ennis coach Sam Harrell, who played for and was an assistant to Mr. Wood at Brownwood. "He's had a huge impact. He had such high expectations for execution. You could watch any of his teams and see that."
Gordon Wood: 1914-2003
Mr. Wood developed a bronchial infection that turned into pneumonia last week then suffered a heart attack on Saturday night, said longtime assistant coach Kenneth West.
He was transported from Brownwood to a hospital in Abilene on Monday.
Mr. Wood is in the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame and the National High School Hall of Fame. He was named National High School Football Coach of the Year in 1979.
When he retired, Mr. Wood had won more games than any Texas high school coach, and he was praised by Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells and the late college coaching legend Bear Bryant.
Influencing Parcells
In a New York Times story, Mr. Parcells was quoted as saying that Mr. Wood was as big an influence on his coaching philosophy as the likes of NFL greats Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry and Chuck Noll.
Mr. Parcells said that in his days as an assistant at Texas Tech in the 1970s, he noticed a "rough-looking, leathery kind of guy with a maroon jacket and a 'B' on his cap" at Tech's daily spring practices.
After a couple of weeks, the man introduced himself to Mr. Parcells as a coach from "a little town down the road."
Mr. Parcells soon learned that Mr. Wood was driving five hours every day to watch Tech's practices, and once they started talking, Mr. Wood had a lengthy list of questions.
"I only crossed paths with him one year, but he was very influential on me," Mr. Parcells told The Times. "The guy's 58, 60 years old, won 300-something games and is driving five hours a day to find out something."
Former Texas A&M coach Bryant, who went on to Alabama and became major-college football's winningest coach when he retired, once told Mr. Wood's son Jim that "if I hadn't left the state of Texas, I would have given your dad a hell of a run to be the best coach in Texas."
Mr. Wood remained a vital part of football after he retired.
"Back in 1988 or 1989, somewhere in there, I would come in about 4 in the morning to review game film before a coach's show," said former Baylor coach Grant Teaff, who is president of the American Football Coaches Assocation. "One time, I was startled by someone in the Green Room [for Baylor alums]. It was Coach Wood, who had slept on the couch. He said he knew I looked at film then and he wanted to look at it with me."
Mr. Wood continued to live in Brownwood and had a newly renovated sports complex named in his honor in September. At the entrance to the stadium is a bronze statue of him.
He had been a regular at high school games for the last 15 years.
"He wasn't at the [recent] playoff games at Texas Stadium," Mr. Harrell said. "I knew he must not have been feeling well."
Mr. Wood was named runner-up to former Texas coach Darrell Royal as "Coach of the Century" in the December 1999 issue of Texas Monthly.
Mr. Wood grew up near Abilene and graduated from Abilene Wylie High School. He attended Hardin-Simmons University on a basketball and football scholarship and spent two years coaching in high school at Rule, then joined the Navy during World War II.
He coached at Roscoe (1947-49), Seminole (1950) and Winters (1950). His career took off at Stamford, where he went 80-6 with two state championships from 1951 to 1957.
Mr. Wood used the Wing-T offensive formation to build Brownwood into a state power. He went 257-52-7, reaching the playoffs 19 times and never having a losing season.
Even with the popularity of no-back and one-back pass-oriented offenses, many successful coaches like Carter's Allen Wilson still rely on the fundamentals of the Wing-T for success.
After two years at Victoria, he went to Brownwood in 1960, winning championships that first year and in 1965, '67, '69, '70, '78 and '81 – the last two after the school changed its mandatory retirement age of 65.
He was replaced by Randy Allen, now head coach at Highland Park.
"A lot of people thought I was crazy for going in and replacing a legend like that," Mr. Allen recalled. "It wouldn't have worked without Coach Wood's help.
"He took me down to the drugstore to meet the local people; he introduced me to the team. And he circulated the thought that we'd be fortunate to be 5-5. It took some pressure off."
Services for Mr. Wood are pending at Davis Morris Funeral Home.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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