Sunday, August 31, 1997

Wylie coach took detour on way to career

By MARK WILSON / Abilene Reporter-News

Hugh Sandifer was destined to become a coach -- or so it seemed.

But a strange thing happened after he graduated from Abilene Christian University in May, 1978.

He just didn't feel like coaching.

Now, Sandifer is preparing for his 12th season as head football coach at Wylie High School. And there's nothing he'd rather be doing.

Sandifer's family moved to Texas from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and from that point on he was immersed in athletics and surrounded by coaches.

His mother worked for 19 years as a secretary to the principal at Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, just northeast of San Antonio. Their home happened to be across the street from the school, and the young Sandifer found enjoyment in hanging out around the coaches as they performed their duties.

The pastime became an everyday learning experience for the boy, who would eventually become Wylie's head football coach and athletic director -- and is beginning his 19th year employed by the Wylie school district.

Sandifer's father, who had retired from the Air Force as a Master Sgt. in 1959, later worked a night shift as a funeral home attendant. So Sandifer's free time after school was usually spent around coaches.

"(I was) doing any errand whatsoever for those coaches because I just thought that was the neatest thing in the world -- the athletics and those coaches. That's kind of one of the reasons I decided to coach," said Sandifer. "I couldn't have asked for a better deal growing up, as far as wanting to be in athletics."

Sandifer said that in addition to having a great Christian home to grow up in, that several of his coaches had a tremendous positive impact on his life as well.

"I know I had some great coaches growing up that pushed me, that disciplined me, that taught me tremendous values and work habits growing up. People talk about role models and heroes -- my coaches were my heroes."

After he graduated from Abilene Christian University, the next step may have seemed obvious: Find a job and start coaching.

Not to Sandifer.

"It was something that I had dreamed about doing my whole life," Sandifer said. "I just knew from the time I was ... seven, eight years old, I wanted to coach. Then the time came, and I didn't want to."

Instead, Sandifer took a job on the 3-11 shift as a child care worker at Abilene Youth Center, which later became Woods Psychiatric Center. Sandifer, working with boys ages 12 and 13 who had emotional problems, soon found out that his education was only beginning.

"That was a great year. That was one of the most absolutely rewarding years of my life, working with those kids, who had, in their first 10 or 12 years of life, been through stuff that I hadn't even heard about or read about.

"Those kids taught me a lot more than I ever taught them. But it was great because a lot of those kids had always grown up thinking sports wasn't cool, or if you were in athletics you conformed to too many rules. So they were all anti-sports, so we were like opposites."

Shifting his field

A nurse at the Youth Center, Kay Wilson, just happened to be married to the man who had been hired in the spring of 1979 as the head football coach at Wylie, Del Wilson.

"I think she kind of watched me with those kids and she told her husband about me," he said. "So in July of '79, I took a job with Wylie."

Sandifer began coaching eighth grade football, and was the junior varsity boys basketball coach and boys and girls tennis coach.

Sandifer was already engaged to the former Brenda Bowen when he accepted the coaching job. She was a French major from Corsicana who was attending a university in Dijon, France, that summer, studying French culture and language.

"I wrote her a letter and told her, 'Guess what, I'm going to coach out at Wylie.' And I told her I'm just going to do this for one year, and then I'm going to get a real job.

"When we got engaged, I was just going to try to pursue some other things -- and coaching wasn't one of them."

One of the things that changed Sandifer's thinking was his upcoming marriage.

"And Kay basically talked me into it, so I'm glad she did -- or I might have still been wanting to coach but not doing it.

"That was what was so ironic, because all my life I was wanting to do it and then the time came to start and I don't know if it was cold feet or if it was just like, 'I don't want to do that.' So for a year I didn't do it -- didn't even think about doing it."

Sandifer, however, said it took no time to regain his enthusiasm for coaching.

"Oh, it took about 10 minutes of that first two-a-day practice. And even though I was the low man on the totem pole, I mean to tell you when I got out there that first morning of two-a-day practices and saw those high school kids, saw the excitement, saw those other coaches -- there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I had done the right thing."

Playing with a future pro

Sandifer became acquainted with Robert Reed -- a future NBA player -- when they were opponents in Little League baseball, both age 12. Reed, who played most of his pro basketball career with the Houston Rockets, eventually became Sandifer's best friend in high school.

Both Reed and Sandifer experienced amazing growth spurts in high school, which helped them become obvious candidates for the basketball team.

Sandifer sprouted from 5-9, 145 pounds at the end of his sophomore year, to 6-3, 170 pounds by the start of his junior year. Reed also was relatively small earlier in high school. But before he began playing basketball at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, he was one of the few who could literally look down on Sandifer.

"He was like me; he was a little short, scrawny dude and hit a growth spurt," Sandifer said. "Then, by the time we were seniors in high school, we were both 6-4. Then the summer after we graduated from high school, Robert grew to 6-8 before he went to college. And then I grew another inch, to 6-51/2."

As a senior, Sandifer was the leading scorer and rebounder on the Clemens basketball team that went 29-4 and made it to the Class 4A regional title game. Reed, a 6-4 point guard, was the third-leading scorer.

Sandifer was contacted by basketball recruiters from Texas Christian and Texas, but decided on ACU. He was impressed on his first visit, and felt that he didn't want to get swallowed up by one of the larger schools.

The image and the reality

Anyone as physically imposing as Sandifer -- and in his position of authority -- can be intimidating in some circumstances. And he has a commanding voice to match his appearance.

In pleasant contrast, he has an affable nature that is evident with students, coaches and other teachers. His sense of humor is never far from the surface, and he shows an obvious love for storytelling. And even when demands on his time are relatively heavy, he accommodates reasonable requests from the Abilene media without complaint.

Wylie superintendent Cecil Davis said that Sandifer has excellent skills in dealing with different types of students and is a good administrator.

"In addition to that he is an ideal role model for our students and I've never seen him be unfair to one of our student-athletes," Davis said. "You can't help but like him. He's always business when he needs to be business, and at the same time when things have relaxed he relaxes and enjoys being around people. He's just a joy to be in the presence of."

Decisions

As a high school athlete, Sandifer chose basketball over football.

Later, when he decided it was time to coach only one sport in addition to his duties as athletic director at Wylie, he went a different route, choosing football over basketball.

Sandifer was a standout in baseball, basketball and football in high school, but football fizzled out of his plans after his sophomore year.

He lettered three years in basketball and four in baseball at Clemens. In football, he had been the starting quarterback for the freshman and junior varsity teams, and was being "groomed" as the likely starter for the varsity going into his junior year.

But his football coach was an "either/or" kind of guy, and forced him to choose between basketball and football. He chose basketball -- not because he loved it any more than football, but because he felt it was the sport in which he had the best chance to get a college scholarship.

"I learned a lot of valuable lessons through that deal," Sandifer said. "It has influenced my coaching tremendously -- the way I handle kids, the way I try to help them work through some problems rather than just back them into a corner and make them make a decision."

Back to the Alamo City

Sandifer's college basketball career at ACU was interrupted after a "difference of opinion" with the school's men's coach at that time. He had been the leading scorer and rebounder on the JV as a freshman, but left the team in early November of his sophomore year.

Reed let his coaches at St. Mary's know that his old high school buddy was no longer playing for ACU, and Sandifer was offered a scholarship. After finishing his sophomore year at ACU, Sandifer transferred to St. Mary's.

Then Sandifer suffered an injury to his tibia, just below his knee. While sidelined with the injury, he started missing ACU.

"I really missed a lot of my friends in Abilene more than I had thought I would when I left there," Sandifer said.

It was during that school year that Sandifer had met Brenda, who was also a student at ACU.

"At the time, she was going out with one of my best friends, and I met her through him. Of course, they didn't date very long and then she and I started dating and then were married when we graduated from college."

Sandifer played two seasons for former ACU baseball coach Alvin O'Dell, in the outfield and some at first base. He was the team's leader in home runs and runs batted-in for the 1977 season.

Challenges

Dealing with individuals each year is part of what keeps his job from becoming dull.

"I think that's what makes our job fresh every day, for all educators and coaches," he said. "Each day is completely different. There's going to be a new set of problems, and there's going to be a new set of good things happening that day.

"And each kid is different, but yet each kid is the most important person in their parent or their guardian's eye. So we have a burden on our shoulders, as coaches and educators, to take care of these kids."

Sandifer said that his own coaches who were the toughest disciplinarians now rank as his favorites.

"I think kids today are no different. I think kids are hungry for discipline and they respond to discipline. The more discipline and direction you give them, the better they like it."

Sandifer believes that coaches have a responsibility to teach student-athletes values outside the realm of sports.

"It's definitely my job. We should all feel an obligation to teach these kids good work habits. We should also teach these kids loyalty and respect and how important it is to be a team player in what they're going to do the rest of their life. If we're not doing that, we're cheating them."

"It's not like it's a factory here for pro athletes. These kids are going to be citizens in the country that we all live in, so I think it's our obligation as coaches to teach them."

One of Sandifer's former players, Ken Blackman, has made it to the professional level in football. He is currently an offensive lineman with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Good times, bad times

Sandifer's record as head football coach entering the 1997-98 school year is 79-43-4. His Bulldogs have been in the playoffs six times, and won district titles in 1987, '92 and '96. Last year's squad went 11-0 before losing in the second round of the playoffs. Wylie's 1994 team reached the Class 3A semifinals and finished 11-4.

In basketball, Sandifer coached the Bulldogs to an overall mark of 231-132. They made the playoffs nine of his 13 seasons, and won seven district titles.

The toughest episode of Sandifer's coaching career was a gut-wrenching tragedy that occurred on Sept. 8, 1989 as the Bulldogs opened the football season at Breckenridge.

"The most difficult season I ever had to deal with, I think, in football, was also one of the most rewarding. It was kind of a two-fold deal -- the year Stacy Kirk broke his neck, the first football game of the year ... seeing how that affected his life, seeing how it affected our football team and our school at the time.

"For a long time, we didn't deal with many problems concerning football because they weren't even relative to what was going on. They were just secondary."

Kirk sustained a fractured vertebra in the first quarter of the game, and was paralyzed. After intense rehabilitation treatment in Dallas for several months, Kirk returned home in June of 1990, having regained the ability to walk short distances with a cane and someone to help him stay balanced.

The news that Kirk was paralyzed left everyone stunned, and made Sandifer start to analyze the big picture.

"To be quite honest, it put doubt in my mind if I was in the right profession. That Saturday morning, that was one of the only days of my life I doubted what I was doing and if it was worth what I was doing.

"But after visiting with him and his family, and the attitude they had, I guarantee you they picked us up."

Sandifer said that he and his assistants try to teach players to keep sports in perspective, be humble in victory, respect opponents and refrain from looking back.

"I think if the coaches handle it that way, the kids will handle it that way. It's not easy. I want to tell you, it's hard. I mean it's the sickest feeling in the world, when you lose and have a frustrating season. It just seems like nothing will go right. We've been on both ends of that deal."

More growth spurts

Sandifer has grown into his career as Wylie has grown as a community.

"I think we had about 220 people in the high school," Sandifer said of his first year at Wylie. "It was (kindergarten) through 12 on one campus and it was completely different than it is now."

Wylie's likely move up from Class 3A to Class 4A should happen when the University Interscholastic League announces its next realignment. Sandifer estimated a count of about 750 students in high school to start the current school year, and the cutoff was 700 when the last realignment was made, two years ago.

The challenge will only become tougher for the school's athletic director.

"I know it will be a huge transition for us, starting off. We've been trying to prepare."

In part because of the greater demands on his time as the school grew, Sandifer decided to give up his dual coaching role. He hired Kirby Chandler to coach the boys basketball team starting with the 1995-96 school year. Sandifer is still head football coach and athletic director.

"I'd been looking to do that, and I just thought the time was right and we needed to move on. We needed our school to progress and move on and I felt that would enable us to do that.

"It's not easy, still, to go watch a game and not be coaching it. I think that's just a competitive nature of anybody."

Sandifer now has more time for far more important athletic events -- like coaching his daughter's youth league basketball team.

"I've spent more family time in the last two years than I have all those other years combined."

Stability

Although Sandifer's experiences as a high school and college athlete weren't always stable as a rock, things are different now as he and Brenda work at raising their two children -- Dakota, 9, a fourth grader, and Madison, 5, who is in kindergarten. Brenda has been the Wylie High School counselor since 1986.

The stability among his assistant coaches is clearly evident, particularly with the veterans with the longest tenures at Wylie -- Chuck Eoff (19th year), Jeff Crider (16th year), Kerry Hibbitts (15th year), Eddie Lang (13th year) and Terry Barrington (11th year).

"Stability on our coaching staff here has done nothing but help our athletic program."

Sandifer, who will turn 42 on Nov. 1, said that it's never good to get too comfortable in any job, but seems to have no complaints with his situation.

"In any profession, there's good days and bad days. But I've never looked back. This is the only thing I've ever really wanted to do and this is the only thing that I continue to feel that way (about).

"I went back and got my master's degree 11 years ago in (education) administration. That's something that I've got in case I ever want to pursue that angle."

Sandifer said he looks forward to going to work every day. And he can't believe he's getting paid for doing something he loves and always (well, almost always) wanted to do.