I
hadn’t even heard of Wood before I persuaded the fledgling sports publication Texas Sports to let me poll a national group
of top college coaches in 1981 on the question of trying to identify Texas’
best high school coach. I was pleasantly surprised when a healthy number of
college coaches agreed to answer my query, which involved anonymously listing
their selections for the state’s 10 best high school coaches and adding a few
comments explaining those picks. I figured I’d see a lot of names from the
powerhouse high schools in Houston and Dallas. But I was stunned to find one
name from rural Brownwood mentioned prominently on every coach’s ballot:
Gordon Wood.
In
follow-up phone calls with coaches at national powerhouses like Nebraska and
Oklahoma, as well as Texas schools, I confirmed their confidence in Wood’s
ability to produce players ready for the college ranks. The more I learned
about Wood, the more eager I became to learn more. So, I convinced the editor
at the Sunday magazine for The Dallas
Times Herald (Westward magazine)
to assign me a feature story on Wood. I traveled to Brownwood one Friday with a
photographer to spend a football weekend with Wood. I even joined him for a
haircut in his favorite Brownwood barber shop before the game, a weekly ritual
for the iconic coach. We finished the weekend with a lengthy interview session
on Saturday following a Brownwood victory on Friday night. I would write about
Wood several times in the next few years.
Wood
died in 2003 at the age of 89. During a 43-year career as a Texas high school football
coach, he won 25 district titles and nine state crowns, finishing with a record
of 396-91-15. At least four other high school coaches have topped that win
mark. Only three college coaches logged more wins than Gordon Wood: John
Gagliardi with 489, Joe Paterno with 409 and Eddie Robinson with 408.
I
wrote the story below as Wood was launching his 1983 campaign, two seasons
before his retirement in 1985. He would finish the 1983 season with a record of
8-3. Two years before his death, Wood penned a memoir entitled Coach of the Century. Of course, there is a Wikipedia article on Gordon Wood for
anyone wanting more details than provided here in my article from the October 1983
editions of Muse Air Monthly.
WORLD'S
WINNINGEST FOOTBALL COACH
Gordon Wood,
coach at Brownwood, Texas, has a won-lost record that’s the best in football at
all levels.
Clearly,
the situation looked hopeless. The Stamford High School Bulldogs — Texas state
football champs in each of the two previous seasons — had been penalized back
to their own one-foot line. The ball sat perched just outside their own end zone.
They looked to the sidelines.
There,
Coach Gordon Wood explained his plan to reserve Wendel Robinson: “Tell them to
wedge block two plays and then punt that ball out of there.” Wood slapped
Robinson on the seat and dispatched him to deliver those instructions to the
players waiting on the field. But somehow; the message was garbled.
“Coach
says for the quarterback to follow me 99 yards on a sneak,” Robinson ordered
from the midst of the huddle. Although they were puzzled, the team dropped into
position and prepared to follow those instructions. And no one was more
surprised than Wood when the play zigged right, then left and then carried
through a hole for a touchdown.
“I
don't k n ow why he told them to do that,” recalls Wood of the incident during
the 1957 season. “But that was a team that just got it in its head they could
do anything. Maybe I had underestimated them by telling them to hang on.”
The
Good Book promises that faith will move mountains. While many geologists might
dispute that claim, most people will agree that faith is still a pretty potent
force, particularly in sports. It would be hard to find a more fitting example
of the strength in that dictum than Gordon Wood, the classic American high
school football coach.
Kicking
off his 45th campaign this fall in Texas high school football. Wood has employed
a lot of faith to help compile the most successful record any football coach in
America has ever enjoyed: 383-77-11 for a winning percentage of .825 with nine
state championships to his credit. When the late Bear Bryant topped the record
for most wins by a college coach (315), he trailed the Texas legend by about 60
victories. Situated as he's been in the lower visibility arena of high school
sports. Wood hasn't been treated to the same sort of national spotlight. Just
this year he was honored with election to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. But
those with a firm grasp of the impact of Woods accomplishment have never been
shy about expressing their opinion.
“Gordon
Wood belonged in there long before I did,” says former University of Texas
coach Darrell Royal. “His record is more remarkable to me than Bear Bryant’s.”
Bryant
himself paid Wood the ultimate compliment when he once joked about his reasons
for leaving Texas A&M: “I just didn't want to be remembered as the second
best coach in the state.”
And
Texas Tech's Jerry Moore confesses: “I’m a Gordon Wood fan.” The framed portrait
of only one coach graces the walls of Moore's Lubbock office—that of Gordon
Wood. The image of a major college coach plotting next season’s strategy
beneath a portrait of a high school mentor is itself symbolic of Texas high
school football.
Gordon
Wood's inspirational record is just the peak of his contribution to Texas culture.
Wood stands as the measure against which all other coaching efforts must be
measured, of course. And he excelled in a realm where he had to rely on the
talent presented him, most of the time molding a bunch of squirts into
champions. There are at least three other even more significant accomplishments
with long range impact attributable to the man.
First,
his imprint will forever be stamped on Texas football coaches in general. Many
of the men coaching across the state today played their schoolboy football
during Wood's golden years in n the 1950s at Stamford. They've carried the Wood
trademark into their own systems and undoubtedly will transmit it to the boys
destined to grow into the state's coaches of the next generation. In many ways Gordon Wood is Texas high school football.
Second,
Brownwood, Texas, where he has coached since I960, has developed at least some
of its community pride from its teams. Brownwood, a pleasant community of
20,000 between Fort Worth and Abilene in northwest central Texas, teems with
ambition. The high school, recently moved up a notch to 4A status, and Wood got
credit for infusing their little city with spirit and pride. In small Texas
towns, the high school football team serves a psychological function. A winning
spirit is contagious. The kids bring it home from school and pass it on at the
supper table. The parents take it to work with them on Monday morning. Grade schoolers
grow up working toward one ultimate goal—to make the team in high school.
Brownwood,
before Gordon Wood, had claimed only one district title in 40 years. By most
accounts it was a depressing place. Wags at a barber shop joked about the
“sissies” on the gridiron. But in his first year as coach, Wood took them to
the first of the school’s seven state championships. He never looked back. And
Brownwood hasn’t either.
Third,
and probably most important, Wood has done much more than pump quality athletes
out of his system. High school sports exists to teach more than the intricacies
of the game. In fact, 95 percent of the kids who play in high school won't go
any further on the football field, but they will carry valuable lessons about
discipline, spirit, pride and, yes, faith, into business, agriculture,
government and education—all the fields which make this society work. To that end,
this is what Gordon Wood is all about. Ask most college coaches to talk about
their most memorable players and you'll get a litany of All-Americans and the
ones who went on to the pros. Ask Wood and you hear about boys who grew up and
went to Congress or one who turned down a coaching job on Wood's suggestion to become
a high-powered math professor.
And
for all who passed through his locker room, Wood voices only the
same,
simple view: “I just hope that I had something to do with teaching that all things
are possible if you get a good vision of what you want to be, work hard and get
your priorities right.”
Before
he died, Bear Bryant offered an equally simple summation of the Brownwood
legend: “What Gordon Wood does, is, he helps people be better people.”
But
how has he done it? What ingredients have combined to create Gordon Wood?
What's the secret of his success?
“The
formula,” replies Wood with characteristic brevity “is to get a program and get
the kids believing in what they're doing.”
That's
faith. And most of all, faith is what Gordon Wood has taught. There’s little complex
strategy and rarely any dramatic hellfire-brimstone oratory in a Gordon Wood
halftime pep talk. He simply tells each player what specific maneuver to make
that should correct the current situation. It works because each player has
learned by experience the primary dictum on a Gordon Wood team: If Wood tells
them something will work, and they follow his orders, it will. And, if that
1957 Stamford squad believed Wood ordered a quarterback sneak for 99 yards,
well, that's exactly what they did—in football's version of a mountain-moving
performance.
Wood
was born May 25, 1914, on a cotton farm in south Taylor County The youngest of
eight children, he learned early that the family watchword was “work.” Their
father toiled in the field from dawn to dusk, and he expected the family to do
the same. An excellent farmer, Wood's father might have become wealthy except
for one flaw, Wood recalls. He did not believe in owing money When disasters
struck and crops failed—as they almost invariably do at one time or another—he moved
his family on rather than borrow money from a bank. The family never went
hungry. But Wood remembers his youth as a time of constant toil. He says the
children always looked forward to those times when their father would loan them
out to neighboring farms where the work schedule was a more comfortable 10-hour
day compared with the 12 hours-plus they knew at home.
Theirs
also was the type of environment in which school became a luxury. The brood
showed for class on opening day, drew their books and returned only when rain
forced them out of the fields. That life left its impression. Wood grew up
seeking an escape. He didn't enjoy farming, an existence dependent on the whims
of nature with its insects and weather. However, it also brought out the
competitor in Gordon Wood. Picking cotton was the only athletic event his
family knew, and he worked obsessively to do it better than his older brothers.
It was a grand occasion when he could brag at supper about having plucked 400
pounds of cotton during the day.
Strangely
enough, the nation's winningest coach played only five football games as a
schoolboy athlete. That occurred in the seventh grade when he lived in Abilene
with his mother. Rather than borrow to pay off a doctor bill, the family split
briefly that year with his father working the farm near Wylie and his mother
doing laundry for pay in the city. The young Wood saw some friends playing
football and asked if he could try. He was so naive, he recalls, he took literally
the coach's instructions to “Go out there and fight.” He failed to make a single
tackle because he was too busy pounding the face of the player across the line.
When
the family was reunited in Wylie, he tried commuting to Abilene because his
local school wasn't large enough to field a team. He surrendered after five
games, the combination of school, travel and farm chores overwhelming even his
enthusiasm. He never played another down in high school.
But
his competitive edge could not be dulled. He played basketball and starred in
track meets around Taylor County He was big and possessed a farm-fed strength.
Those qualities, plus his desire to win, landed him a general athletic
scholarship at Hardin- Simmons College in Abilene. At last, he was freed from
the farm—but not entirely from chores. His scholarship covered only tuition and
books. To pay for room and board, young Wood brought a family cow to Abilene.
Her milk each day earned him quarters at a boarding house.
In
1938, with the Great Depression still in full fury, Wood graduated from Hardin-Simmons
clutching degrees in physical education and history. By 1940, Wood had made
enough contacts to land a head coaching position at Rule High School. Half the
size of Spur, it had lost 20 straight football games, but it offered Wood the
perfect laboratory for demonstrating his special talent. It was at Rule that he
began to practice the techniques destined to create a legend.
Foremost
came an ability to look beneath the muscles and speed when selecting players,
to locate those with that special quality known as “heart.” One incident in particular
illustrates his jeweler’s eye in this regard. During spring drills at Rule,
Wood watched a defensive back miss a tackle that would have prevented a
touchdown. Calling the youngster to the sidelines, Wood simply chided: “Johnnie,
I don't believe you even tried to tackle that kid.” He was prepared for a response of
disappointment but nothing like the scene that transpired. Johnnie cried all
afternoon.
Wood
recalls his own feelings: “I knew then in my heart this was something I’d never
have to say to that kid again. He was trying as hard as he could. I knew I had me
a football player. You’ve got to recognize these things in kids.”
Halftime
of opening day found his team behind 25-0. On the way to the locker room he
overheard his two largest players grumbling, “It’s nothing.” Wood started the
halftime pep talk by telling them to turn in their uniforms. The surviving
members of the team returned to the field and carved out Rule's first win in
two seasons, 31-28.
By
1942, Wood was able to carry his first head coaching record from Rule into the
U.S. Navy: 11 wins and 9 losses. He spent World War II in California, where he
served as a chief petty officer for recreation and boxing. He worked part time
for some college coaches out there, recruiting, scouting and undoubtedly
learning a number of new tricks.
He
returned to Texas in 1945, assuming the helm at Roscoe where the student body
totaled 113. He overcame car wrecks which injured his stars and a flu epidemic
to compile a record of 17-2-2 with one district title. On toward destiny he
continued to roll: 1947-1949 at Seminole (20-9-2); 1950 at Winters (7-3); 1951-1957
at Stamford (81-6); 1958-59 at Victoria (12-7-1), and finally, 1960 to present
at Brownwood (235-41-6).
It
was at Stamford that Wood-led teams began to project a distinct personality,
one etched into the face of Texas high school football. Besides nailing down
two state football titles there (1955 and 1956) he coached the school's golf team
to the state championship one year with the help of his football quarterback.
That quarterback, Charles Coody went on
to become one of the country's outstanding professional golfers. At Stamford, Wood
polished his expertise in the fine art of preparation.
He
called upon graduates to spend Friday nights scouting future opponents. One of
the players who benefitted from those reports remembers them as extremely
detailed.
“He
really wanted to beat Seminole, his old school,” recalls H. L. “Buddy” Gray now
a math professor at Southern Methodist University. “We were both 12-0. Before
the game, he passed out a sheet to our team with facts and figures about every
member of their team. He even had quotes they might have said, comments about
which ones were married and which ones could intimidate. I don't know how he
collected all that, but we wound up beating them 35-0. We respected him because
he planned things and told us they would work. If we did them right, they did
work.”
Under
Wood, those Stamford teams developed a reputation for using the first play of
the game as a boost. Gray recalls that Wood always seemed to know his opponents’
weakest spot, and that spot is where he went to open the offense. But Wood also
used those years to develop a precise understanding of dealing with youngsters.
“I’d
never been so severely chewed out as when I missed a block,” recalls Charles
Stenholm, one of Gray's teammates and now a U.S. congressman from Stamford. “But
I've never been so sincerely praised as when I did something good. He just had
an instinct for knowing when to rage and when to calm down.”
For
any coach, the halftime pep talk is equivalent to a doctor's bedside manner as
a key to success. Wood explains his philosophy developed at Stamford: “All that
gung-ho, beat ‘em up and kill ‘em stuff is no good. Kids are too wise. But there
are times when the worst thing you can do is chew them out. There’s a reason
for them doing poorly. Just find it, tell ‘em what it is and let them correct.”
The
most important aspect of Wood’s relationship with young players concerns their
emotional foundation. Some coaches win because they hate to lose. Wood seems to
win because of his love for the kids. His yearbooks yield a thousand different
stories, and he built on those relationships to the maximum. He always took the
time for personal attention, becoming for many boys the second father they
needed in those uncomfortable adolescent years. It was not unusual to find Gordon
Wood dipping into his own pocket to help with a doctor bill.
One
example of Wood's personal touch was Gray He came to Texas as a refugee from an
Oklahoma City street gang. He'd gotten into trouble and moved south to live with
an uncle. Gray chuckles now about the size of Wood's Stamford teams: “They
wouldn't even have let some of those kids come out for football in the city.”
Once
Wood warned Gray about picking on a quieter member of the team, predicting he’d
be unable to handle the explosion that was bound to occur. Wood’s
home
was the first place Gray stopped to display the black eye that boy had finally
presented to him. And years later it was Gordon Wood who got a late night phone
call from Gray as he wrestled with a career decision. It wasn’t too late for
Wood to listen and advise Gray against accepting a high school coach’s
position.
“I
remember him being absolutely furious about some other coach,” Gray recalls of
another incident which demonstrates Wood's outlook toward helping rather than
just winning. “A kid at another school had gotten hurt and Gordon asked the
coach how the kid was recovering. The other coach told him the kid wasn't doing
too well. He said the kid wouldn't work out, that he wouldn’t follow the
exercises given to him.
“Gordon
said that was the coach's job. He said he would have taken that kid out to the
field by himself and gotten him started. A coach has to show the kid he's interested
in him first and then see if the kid will respond. And that’s how he’s treated
every kid that’s ever come his way.”
“We
try to tell all of our kids that they are better than they think they are,”
says Wood. “Maybe not as good as they tell their girlfriends, but better than
they really think they are. But none will ever make it up to their potential.
And the potential is always there.”
With
his Stamford teams to bolster his reputation, Wood decided to move up a notch
in 1958, accepting the highest level head coaching job he's ever held at
division Four-A Victoria. His two-year experience there paved the way for the
triumphs to come at Brownwood. For starters, he recruited as his assistant
Morris
Southall, at that time the head coach for Winters. Today Southall is still his
assistant, having moved with Wood to Brownwood in I960. They've always lived
next door to each other, and Wood is quick to give Southall lots of credit.
Indeed, Southall could have moved on to head coaching jobs of his own, but his
desire to remain 25 years as Wood’s top aide stands as a comment itself on the
attractions of coaching high school football in Texas. In Brownwood he feels
he's been a part of the most successful program in America, and the record
presents a good argument for that opinion. Southall is the only assistant coach
in Texas who has served as head coach of the state's all-star team. Wood's
other assistant, Kenneth West, has been with Wood’s program for 20 years—another
testament to its magnetism.
But
the crucial lesson Wood learned in Victoria concerned his personal goals. He went
there as the highest paid high school coach in the state in 1958. Victoria was
the big time for high school coaches, perhaps a step to collegiate ranks. When
Wood reviewed the stands for a district championship game in 1959, however, he
made a decision. Victoria had sold only 200 adult tickets. Something was
missing, even if he was coaching in the big league. Just before the opening kickoff,
Wood whispered to Southall: “I’m getting out of here.”
At
his next stop he accepted the stiffest challenge of his career with a cut in
pay worth $2,500 per year. “The retiring coach here told me, ‘Nobody can win at
Brownwood.’ I knew Brownwood was not a winner,” Wood recalls. “But no job is
ever as good as it looks, or as bad. It’s just what you make of it.”
When
he moved to Brownwood in February I960, Wood stopped in a barber shop for a
haircut. In there he quickly learned the attitude of the town. Recognized as
the “new coach,” Wood immediately drew comments from another customer who said
he was already betting on Breckenridge—beaten only once by Brownwood in 30 years
and scheduled for the seventh game that season. Wood listened a while, got his
haircut, paid his tab and went to the door.
Before
he left, Wood offered a taste of his attitude: “If every SOB in this town is as
sorry a sports fan as you, you don't ever deserve to beat Breckenridge. When I walk
out this door, you can bet your life I’ll never take another step back in here as
long as I live.”
Fortunately
Brownwood had another barber shop because Gordon
Wood
has had many more haircuts in the years since then. His team that year “just
got it in their heads they could score on anybody” and by the time the Breckenridge
game came around, the first fan in line to buy tickets purchased 373.
Maroon-and-white
state championship footballs now line Wood’s bookshelves at home like scalps on
an Indian brave's teepee: I960, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1978 and 1981. It’s a
tradition that’s inspired the whole community.
Wood
doesn’t cut players who come out for the team. He usually has 90 or more
wearing uniforms and boasting about being a Brownwood Lion. “Oh,” he admits, “we
may try to discourage some of them a bit, but if a kid had any ability at all
and really wanted to play, I couldn't cut him. You have to decide if they are
there because they want to be or just to look good. We emphasize winning here.
It’s tremendous pressure now, and I don't apologize for it . You’re competing with
everyone in life.”
Besides
the exercises, weight training and agility drills. Wood and Southall have devised
some other routines of note. One is a listening drill in which assistant coaches
scout the assembled team to detect wandering eyes or lack of interest. A
Brownwood Lion can attract a more serious tirade for daydreaming in a skull
session than for missing a tackle.
By
the time they're 69, most coaches have retired to the spectator ranks. In 1983,
Wood appears to be the very picture of health and enthusiasm. He won't say anything
about plans to retire. On the start of his 23rd campaign for Brownwood, his
thoughts this year focus on the team. With only two starters returning from
last year’s squad, the experts weren't giving the Lions any vote of confidence.
With Wood cracking the whip, however, they're always a threat to go all the way.
As
for Wood's analysis, well, he seems to look at all his teams about the same before
each season starts: “I may just find me a bunch of little nuggets in there
somewhere. Who knows?”
