Football: Permian's program made major impression on Arlington Martin coach

Bob Wager knew what he wanted to do.

Coaching high school football was his dream. A running back throughout his football career, Wager was working as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Then he read Friday Night Lights.

Back in 1992, Friday Night Lights was a bestseller, a book that every football coach in the country had on his shelf. It put an idea into Wager that the 22-year-old coach couldn’t shake.

“I wanted to coach in a place where football meant a great deal,” Wager said.

So Wager made a radical decision. At 22, he had no debt. No girlfriend. And he had a rusty old Jeep CJ7 that he wasn’t real sure could make a cross-country drive.

But he did have $500.

“I knew that car wouldn’t make it,” Wager said. “So I traded it in for a motorcycle that had a lot better gas mileage, threw a gym bag on the back and headed down to Texas.”

Riding on the back of a black Suzuki Katana 600, Wager headed down to the Lone Star State in time to attend the Texas High School Coaches Association coaching school.

Wager found a job at Carter Junior High in Arlington at THSCA coaching school and started work the next Monday.

Rising up the chain didn’t really take Wager all that long. After a year at Carter Junior High, Wager was brought up to be an assistant coach at Arlington Sam Houston, where he rose to offensive coordinator.

From there, Wager earned the head coaching job at Tolar, a Class 1A school, then got the job at Class 2A Groveton, then rose to Class 3A Kaufman.

At both Groveton and Kaufman, Wager’s teams reached the quarterfinals.

Finally, four years ago, Wager was handed the head coaching job at Arlington Martin, a school that hadn’t reached the playoffs in seven years.

“When I came down, I was in awe of Texas high school football,” Wager said. “Sometimes when you think of something like that, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment, but it’s been everything I hoped it would be.”

 Built around a run-heavy offense that operates out of the shotgun, the run-and-shoot, the I-formation and the wishbone, Wager has built Arlington Martin (7-4) into a team that has made four straight playoff appearances.

“They do a little bit of everything,” Permian head coach Gary Gaines said. “And they pretty much run it out of any formation you can come up with.”

This year, Wager finally broke through to win Arlington Martin’s Class 5A Division I bi-district playoff matchup.

And advanced to play Permian under the leadership of Gaines. The same team, the same coach that brought him to Texas in the first place.

Wager has come full-circle.

“From an honest perspective, this is a thrill for me,” Wager said. “It’s the realization of a dream.”

Holding $500 might not seem like much.

But apparently it can take you a long way.

>> PERMIAN VS. ARLINGTON MARTIN

When: 1 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Shotwell Stadium, Abilene.

Records: Permian 8-3; Arlington Martin 7-4.

Last year: Did not play.

Radio: KHKZ-FM (99.1).