Hall of Fame: It didn't take long for retired Wylie AD/coach to get in hall

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today continues a series of stories on the 2023 inductees into the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame. Coming Saturday is Adree Lakey Whitefield, who was a track and field standout at Angelo State University from Roby. The banquet is Monday evening.

Monday will be a sad day for Jimmie Keeling and Grant Teaff.

They no longer will be the only members of the Big Country Athletic Hall of Fame who have a statue in Abilene.

And like the legendary Gordon Wood, new inductee Hugh Sandifer has a stadium named after him.

Sandifer, who retired in 2020 after 41 years as a coach and administrator - all at Wylie High School - joins Keeling, Wood and other coaching greats in hall of fame. Keeling coached at Hardin-Simmons while Teaff played and coached at McMurry before gaining more fame at Baylor. In recent years, HSU and McMurry have erected statues to honor them.

Keeling was honored in 2021, 11 years after retiring, and Teaff in 2022, 57 after last coached at McMurry.

Sandifer didn't have to wait as long. His went up five months after he retired.

Also in 2020, Wylie's football stadium was named for Sandifer, and those entering the home stands on the west side today pass a life-sized bronze of him.

But going into the hall of fame with the likes of Wood, Keeling, late Wylie coach Stanley Whisenhunt and another recent inductee, Abilene High coach Steve Warren, is a big deal to Sandifer.

"It's a huge honor," he said this week, just back in Texas from Mexico (he laughed that he will be well tanned for the banquet). "Very humbling because of the great tradition of the all the athletes and coaches and of the people who have contributed sports in the Big Country.

"Just to be mention with those people is very humbling. I am very excited."

Sandifer said he recently talked to Masters champ Charles Coody, a hall of fame member.

"He said, 'What an honor for all of us to be in this with Coach Wood,'" Sandifer said. "That was his coach, and here's a Masters champion talking about one of his coaches. The names are just incredible."

A good run into retirement

Sandifer won 285 football games as head coach and the 2004 state championship, with future NFL quarterback Case Keenum under center.

The Bulldogs played for a state title three other times, the last time in 2016, losing to Carthage.

He walked away from football just 15 wins shy of 300, a milestone level of achievement for a high school coach in Texas because it shows both durability and a coach's ability.

Sandifer and his wife, Brenda, retired at the same time from the Wylie ISD in May 2020. The pandemic had nothing to do with the timing.

He said retirement has been good, but once a coach, always a coach.

"We've really enjoyed it," he said. "But you're never going to replace the day to day with the coaches and kids. That's something that you obviously miss. Game nights are different as well."

He now can go to a game, then go home.

"I have enjoyed my time away but there are so many great memories that I can look back on and think how blessed I was to get to do that," he said.

Would he pull a Tom Brady and make a comeback?

"Aw, no one wants me," he said. "It's like those horses they send to the factories. When you're done, you're done.

"They're not beating my door down, I'll put it that way."

Grading an 'A' as AD

Sandifer was the coach who brought Wylie up a notch to Class 5A.

The Bulldogs today compete as the same level as Abilene and Cooper high schools in most sports - they played Cooper in a district football game for the first time last fall.

And won. Wylie played in the 1A classification in 1961, only recently moving up from Class B, when Cooper opened.

Sandifer also coached boys basketball for years. Sandifer was athletic director and football coach for the last 25 years of his career.

As athletic director, Wylie excelled in most sports, particularly team tennis. Wylie won the state UIL title the first year schools its size competed in that organization.

The baseball program won back-to-back titles in 2016-17, while girls volleyball and basketball were consistent playoff teams. Volleyball won a title in 2012 after taking second the year before and advancing to the state tourney in 2010.

Basketball won back-to-back titles in 2011-12.

Though Sandifer was known primarily as a football coach, one who was not shy of conversing with officials during games, the strength of the Wylie sports program overall was the most impressive to many. Under Sandifer, Wylie became more than a girls basketball school, as it was under Whisenhunt's tutelage. While the Lady Bulldogs remained highly competitive on the court, other programs emerged.

"We were always striving to do the best we could in as many sports as we could," he said. "We had a motto, that we wanted to play hard and do the right thing from August to June. And I thought success bred success.

"There was some competitive nature among all our teams. We wanted to succeed. We wanted to represent Wylie. We had teams that pulled for each other. It absolutely continued to bring success."

Make yourself at home, Hugh

Sandifer, who played baseball at Abilene Christian, wasn't going to stay at Wylie long, maybe years.

Instead, a stayed for a career.

He credits that to the people first at ACU and then at Wylie for making the young couple feel at home.

"They took care of Brenda and me, helped us stay on the right path here," he said. "It is amazing because I thought I'd go out to Wylie for one year. I was going to get of Abilene. But we saw what a great town it was, a great family town.

"Luckily for us, we stuck around."

When Sandifer arrived at Wylie, there was a volunteer coach named Larry Fariss. Fariss was in the Air Force, and would go on to coach at the Air Force Academy.

"He was a good fella that I met when I first started out," Sandifer said.

It was Fariss who recruited Abilene's Kim Gidley to coach women's tennis at the academy. Gidley joins Sandifer in the hall of fame Monday.

It's connections like these, which are common in Abilene, that Sandifer treasures.

The induction honor is not just about him, he said. The retired coach said it's about his family and Wylie, "which gave me the opportunity to work there. So it's about them as well."

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Hall of Fame: It didn't take long for retired Wylie AD/coach to get in hall