Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Former Hewitt-Trussville football coach Jack Wood, right, talks with Jeff Williams, center, who coached with Wood from 1992-96, and Dwight Buzbee, his Auburn college roommate, during a reception honoring Wood with friends and family for his induction into the National High School Athletics Coaches Association Hall of Fame in June.
The state capital’s airport may have been small, but the trip was a big one.
Longtime Hewitt-Trussville head football coach Jack Wood was announced as an inductee into the National High School Athletics Coaches Association Hall of Fame in June. He attended the induction ceremony in Bismarck, N.D. — his first trip to the state.
“It was nice,” Wood said. “Good people. Really good people up there. It was a good trip and [I was] honored to go.”
Terry Curtis, the longtime UMS-Wright head football coach who serves as president of the Alabama Football Coaches Association, told Wood, the association’s executive director, that he was being nominated.
“They assured me this would be happening and, of course, I got on him,” Wood joked. “I said, ‘Terry, it’s my job to be doing this stuff for the coaches, not them doing it for me.’ So, that was nice. I didn’t know about it until it was already done, and I’m not good at surprises. I told somebody while I was up there — I think it was the director from Texas — I said, ‘This is the kind of stuff you and I are supposed to be doing for our coaches.’ We laughed and I said, ‘I feel like I’m giving myself my own birthday party.’”
He joked, of course, but when the realization set in that he was being inducted into a national hall of fame, he was grateful.
“Very humbled,” Wood said. “I mean that. And surprised. Any time you attach ‘national’ on something, it gets your attention. Very appreciative.”
When the news came out, text messages and calls poured in. Coaches and former players honored Wood’s induction on July 12 at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in Birmingham.
“It’s just been overwhelming,” Wood said. “To hear back from former players, that’s the best part. I’ve answered every one of them personally if I could, a lot of them, and I’m not complaining. I still preach this — I still get on my soapbox some, being around coaches — but at the end of the day, it’s what your players think of you now. That’s it. It’s not the Ws and Ls. It’s what they think of you now. I think the best part now of all this is my relationship with the players and what they think now. You’re not going to win them all, but I love my players and I tell them that every time I see them, and they tell me that. That’s the best part, and that’s been the best part of this. No doubt.”
Wood, who grew up in Wetumpka, graduated from Auburn University in 1973 and subsequently began his coaching career at nearby Auburn High School. He remained there for a decade, spending about half the time as the varsity football team’s defensive coordinator. In 1983, he was hired as the Hewitt-Trussville head football coach, where he accumulated a 141-78 record over the next 19 seasons. His teams made the playoffs 14 of those seasons. The 1992 team, which finished 12-3, played for the Class 6A state championship, the Huskies’ only appearance in the ultimate game in school history. Wood was named Coach of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association that year.
