When I arrived in Abilene in June 2007, less than a month after graduating from Baylor, my experience with the city was confined to my two-day interview with the Reporter-News.
The only things I knew about the Wylie football program I’d soon be covering for the newspaper were those I’d been told — that the Bulldogs were really good and that coach Hugh Sandifer was an icon in the south Abilene community.
It was only after being here a little while that I realized why those things were — and that those two seemingly interconnected facts stood largely independent of each other.
Sandifer, who announced Friday that he’ll be ending his 41-year tenure at Wylie when he retires at the end of this school year, is and will be remembered as a great coach. But it’s not his 285 career wins (the 17th highest total in Texas high school football history), four state championship game appearances or 2004 title run with current Redskins quarterback Case Keenum that will define his legendary career.
It is, instead, the integrity with which he operated and the way he treated and impacted people from his role as a mentor — characteristics widely celebrated in the social media response to Friday’s news and qualities to which I, personally, can attest.
Continue reading “DANIEL YOUNGBLOOD: Wylie’s Sandifer a coaching legend, better man”
