After 40-plus years of coaching, earlier last week a good friend of mine retired from an amazing coaching career. Sam Harrell (Sammy to me) came from a coaching family here in Brownwood. His dad coached with Gordon Wood.
In high school, Sam was a great quarterback for the Brownwood Lions, coached by Gordon Wood, and he graduated in 1975. He returned as an assistant in 1982 under Gordon and stayed until 1990 when he moved away. In 1994 he took over at Ennis racking up three 4A State titles. He became one of the first coaches in Texas to use a no-huddle spread offense and also one of the first teams in the state to have its offensive players wear wristbands with numbered plays called in from the sidelines. He continued coaching there until 2010 when he had to step away from football for the first time due to his MS. He underwent stem cell therapy treatments in Panama and worked hard to make a comeback and he was able to return to Brownwood with Coach Bob Shipley’s Lions football team as the quarter back coach in 2012. Always with a smile, it was always good for this old broadcaster to see him. He then returned to Ennis in 2018.
Sam has received numerous honors through the years such as Coach of the Year by Reebok, Texas Sport Writer Association, Dallas Cowboys, served on the THSCA’s board of directors and as its president and named to that organization’s Hall of Honor. He was inducted into the Gordon Wood Hall of Champions as well.
Sam and his wife Cathy are greatly loved by the Ennis community. He is known as a leader in his community and has had an influence on thousands of kids. His son Graham set several records as quarterback in Ennis and was quarterback for Texas Tech then went on as a backup for Aaron Rodgers on the Green Bay Packers.
Now, once again he is forced to leave coaching due to his MS. In a press release he said if he could he would “coach another 5 or 10 years” but his health issues make that impossible. He has a record of 203-79 overall at Ennis. Life will once again be different for Sam to not be on the field coaching but be assured, he will always be in the hearts of many, many people, including me.
Our prayers will be with him and Cathy as they enter this new chapter of their life.
So long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].