The 2021 Class of the Gordon Wood Hall of Champions was inducted Friday during a banquet at the First United Methodist Church’s Christian Life Center. This year’s inductees included Val Rhodes, Mike Smith, Casey Pachall, Luke Chastain and Coach Randy Allen.
In a ceremony emceed by Dallas Huston, the inductees shared their fondest memories of their time at Brownwood High School and the impact being part of the Lion athletic program had on their lives going forward.
Allen, who served as head coach at Brownwood from 1986-90 – immediately after Wood – could not attend the ceremony as his Highland Park Scots are facing West Mesquite later tonight. Allen did send a video recapping his time at Brownwood.
Allen was head coach at Ballinger when he was offered the job of following Wood at midnight on a Friday, with a press conference already scheduled for Saturday.
“For the first time since I interviewed the weight of what it would be like to follow Coach Wood weighed on my shoulders and I began to pray about it,” Allen said of learning he was one of two finalists for the job. “My wife and I prayed about it, I called my dad, and called back that morning and said I wanted to accept that position as head coach at Brownwood High School.”
Allen then told the story of how he wanted to let his Ballinger players know he was leaving before the word got out in Brownwood. However, one of the Ballinger players was working for KRUN radio in Ballinger and after Allen made the announcement there, word quickly spread on the radio.
Wood was not at Allen’s introductory press conference, but Allen quickly reached out to the coaching legend.
“I said Coach I want you to know I know all those TV cameras were there today because of you, and all I want to do is continue this great tradition and give these young men a great experience for football,” Allen said.
Allen added that Coach Wood offered to take him around town to meet his friends once he moved to Brownwood.
“Coach Wood was the primary reason why I even had a chance to make it Brownwood,” Allen said. “There’s a coaching axiom that says you don’t want to be the coach to follow a legend, you want to be the coach that follows the coach that followed a legend. There was no way to exceed the expectations Coach Wood had put into place. When you’re the winningest coach in Texas football, when you’ve won seven state championships, expectations are sky high. But I really felt there was some important reason for me to go to Brownwood High School. There were young men there who needed great coaches and great mentorship, and it was a great time for my family.”
Since leaving Brownwood, Allen has coached at Abilene High and, for the past 22 seasons, at Highland Park where he has led the Scots to four state titles. Heading into Friday’s game, owned a 414-90-6 record in 39 years as a head coach – the third most wins for a coach in Texas high school football history.
Pachall was the first inductee present to speak, as the 2009 Brownwood High grad is one of the most storied quarterbacks in program history. Pachall went on to quarterback the TCU Horned Frogs where he still ranks in the Top 5 in career passing yards, single season passing yards, single game passing yards, career passing touchdowns, single season passing touchdowns, single game passing touchdowns, and completion percentage.
Pachall played for the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League in 2014 before being traded to the Calgary Stampeders later that season. In 2015 Pachall went to mini-camps with the Oakland Raiders, the Seattle Seahawks, the New York Jets, and has multiple workouts with other NFL teams.
“I want to say thank you to everybody who was involved on the board in selecting me,” Pachall said. “This is a huge honor and seeing everybody who has come before and those who will continue to come, being a part of this storied program is something special and is something I will always cherish and truly appreciate.”
Reflecting on his one and only meeting with Coach Wood, Pachall said, “I was in middle school and I didn’t get the opportunity to talk too much, but just being in his presence was something special. He just gave off this vibe and aura about him that was something you just wanted to be around. The minute he would speak your ears would perk up and you would listen.”
Pachall also compared his time as a Lion to his playing days with TCU.
“Being a Brownwood Lion is something I am truly grateful for,” Pachall said. “Growing up in this town, I couldn’t ask for anything more than that. Going to college, playing at TCU was a great experience, but I promise you there’s nothing like walking out of that tunnel with the love and support and loyalty of everybody in this town, and that’s what makes this program so special. Even right now it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.”
Rhodes, a 1972 graduate of Brownwood High School, served in the capacity as student athletic trainer. He was also a three-year letterman in football, a two-year letterman in track and a member of the 1969-70 state football team.
“It’s always an honor and a privilege for me to enter the city limits of Brownwood, a town I love so much, enjoyed so much and have so many memories,” Rhodes said. “It’s also a privilege to be involved with anything with Brownwood High School, especially anything that deals with the legacy of Coach Wood.”
Rhodes stated he never expected to get the call to join the Hall.
“Coach (Royce) Blackburn called and told me I was going to be inducted and I literally cried,” Rhodes said. “I never thought I would have the opportunity to be involved because I’m an athletic trainer, I’m the water boy, I’m manager.”
Rhodes expressed his thanks to coaches and family for molding him into a man who has spent more 45 years working with youth and young adults in the Metroplex as a chemistry teacher, administrator, science instructional specialist and instructional coach.
“I kind of feel like that old pack mule that was at the Kentucky Derby,” Rhodes said. “He was just walking around and all of the sudden he was surrounded by Secretariat, surrounded by Man o’ War, surrounded by Seabiscuit, all these thoroughbreds. And that mule is looking at them like I’m looking at all you greats, and he said ‘I ain’t never won nothing, I ain’t trying to win. I’m just happy to be on the track.’ I just want you to know I’m happy to be here.”
Chastain, the valedictorian of the Brownwood High Class of 2011, joins his father Kirk, a 2014 inductee, in the Hall of Champions.
Chastain competed in varsity track for two years, varsity soccer for three years, and varsity football for three years, as he was a member of the 2010 state semifinals squad that rewrote the Brownwood offensive record book. Chastain also caught the game-winning touchdown pass on the final snap of the game in Brownwood’s lone 7-on-7 state championship season in the summer of 2010.
“I’m so honored and so humbled to even be considered by the board,” Chastain said. “I grew in Brownwood, grew up looking at my dad’s state championship footballs. This was always a dream, but it wasn’t a goal of mine or something that seemed attainable. It’s great to look back and see all the names that have come through the program that have helped shape things to where they stand today. It feels like sometimes we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, and they helped form the blueprint of how to come through the Brownwood Lion program and translate all that hard work to the rest of our lives. We’re seeing the fruits of that now.”
Chastain added the biggest lessons he learned at Brownwood High didn’t necessarily come on the field of play.
“Being a Brownwood Lion means so much more than developing football skills,” Chastain said. “It helped ingrain in me skills such as integrity, hard work, tenacity, work ethic and other skills that I would carry over into all the other different aspects of my life.”
Smith, a 1990 graduate of Brownwood High, is now 35th District Court Judge serving Brown and Mills County. But in high school, Smith set the single-season home run record for the Lions with 15 during his all-state senior campaign. Among his football highlights, he was called up to the varsity to kick in the final regular season game and the playoffs as a freshman.
Smith was one of the student-athletes who experienced playing under both Wood and Allen, as did current Lions head football coach Sammy Burnett.
“In the seventh and eighth grade we started learning Gordon Wood’s offense and we’re getting ready to make our mark on Brownwood and bring (state championship) No. 8, it was a matter of time in our eighth-grade minds,” Smith said. “Then one day we get word Gordon Wood is retiring. Then we got word they’ve hired someone from Ballinger, Texas and we’re thinking ‘my goodness, this is not heading in the right direction.’ But very quickly, with his attitude and enthusiasm and his passion for the game, Randy Allen won our hearts. Getting to be there to see Gordon Wood retire and Randy Allen to come in was pretty special.”
Smith expressed his thanks to family, friends and former coaches for their support through the years, then addressed the 2021 Brownwood Lions prior to their home finale against Waxahachie Life – where a 13th straight playoff berth could be secured.
“Don’t let anybody up here fool you, we’ve all failed a lot more in life than we’ve succeeded,” Smith said. “Our lives, in getting to this point, includes a long list of failures. But the journey of just following my heart and trusting that God had a purpose for me is what kept me going. I turn 50 years old in about a month and a half, and that purpose in life is just now starting to come clear. I get to the honor and privilege of serving you as your district judge, but most importantly I have the honor and privilege and the greatest joy in my life to be a dad to Lucy and Hank and a husband to Lindsay. Those purposes in life is what this is really all about. You’re going to work hard, you’re going go out there and put it all on the line, but this will end and you will go on in your life and be faced with more challenges.
“I want to leave you with the words of our baseball coach, Mark Howeth – find a way. Any time things weren’t going the way we wanted or our backs were against the wall he would rally us in the way that only he could and he would tell us to ‘find a way.’ At some point, the task falls on you. We want you to find that way. We know you’re going to fail and you’re going to make mistakes, but we will be here to support you anyway we can.”
Bios and additional information for each of the inductees can be found here.
