The Greater Houston Football Coaches Association will induct former Columbia Roughnecks head coach Jack Hays into its Hall of Honor tonight, May 6, 2009. It is a deserving honor for the only coach in Columbia High School history to lead the Roughnecks to a state championship berth in football. Jack was added to the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Honor in 1981, and during this past 2008 season he was inducted into our local high school's athletics hall of honor.
Jack Hays has been my insurance man for several years, and has been a good friend much longer than that. He was the athletics director at Columbia High when my brother and sister and I all attended school there in the 1970s. And he and his family have been sitting one row below us at Roughnecks football games for over 20 years. My family and his have season tickets at Griggs Field in close proximity, and I always look forward to Friday nights during football season to watch the hometown boys wearing the maroon and white try to make their fans proud of them on the field and absorb as much football wisdom as possible during the games from the two Jacks seated in front of me.
Jack and his son Jackie, who is also a retired high school football coach like his Dad, never fail to entertain my wife, my brother and sister and I during the Roughnecks football games. Their humor and friendly nature are much appreciated by the Guptons. Coach Hays and his son are both great story tellers. My brother Cody graduated from Columbia High in 1972 with Jack and Ellen Hays' daughter Jenna. Jenna's big brother Jackie and my big brother Cody were teammates on the Roughnecks' junior varsity team in 1969, the year the team advanced all the way to the state championship game, so listening in as Jackie and Cody and Jackie's Dad relive those glory days from 40 years ago while watching the current collection of Roughnecks battle on the gridiron is priceless.
I truly enjoyed sitting near Jack's family at the game this past fall when he was among those being inducted at halftime into the Roughnecks' Hall of Honor. His daughter Jenna and her husband, former Texas Longhorns' quarterback Randy McEachern, were there along with his sons Jackie and Jeff. I had to wipe a tear away as I watched them watching their Daddy in the spotlight down on the field, the same field where he patrolled the sidelines as Columbia High's head coach from 1969 through 1981. It was touching to watch and Jack was very deserving of the honor.
He remains the local high school's winningest football coach with a career record of 81-37-5 at West Columbia. His coaching career also included stops at Grapevine, South Oak Cliff and El Campo before he finally dropped anchor in West Columbia. He completed his 18-year coaching career with a record of 130-60-8. After stepping away from coaching high school football, Jack Hays opened his own insurance business in West Columbia and still remains active in the family business today, although he has turned over the management of the business to his son Jackie.
"Any time you are awarded or honored by members of your peers, it is always a great honor," Jack told a newspaper reporter earlier this week in commenting about his Wednesday night hall induction. "They chose me to be among some other great people already in it."
Jack Hays coached El Campo to the Class 3A state championship game in 1967 when his Ricebirds were defeated, 36-12, by Brownwood. The Roughnecks were district champions in 1968 under head coach Carmen Bonner. Alvin eliminated the '68 Roughnecks in a bi-district battle at Hopper Field in Freeport on the banks of the Brazos River. Coach Bonner accepted the head coaching job at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin in 1969, which opened the door for the Columbia-Brazoria school board and Superintendent Kenneth Welsch to hire Jack Hays as the Roughnecks new athletics director and head football coach.
The Roughnecks sailed through Hays' inaugural season undefeated to win the first of what would be five district championships under his leadership. Led by junior quarterback Mike Ellisor and all-state running backs Charley Davis and Charlie Johnson, as well as first team all-state lineman Randy Stanford and second team all-state lineman Randy Powell, the '69 Roughnecks had to get by two extremely tough opponents in Brenham and Belton to reach the state championship game. No other Columbia High football team has ever advanced deeper in the playoffs than Jack Hays' 1969 squad. Following a 43-12 bi-district victory over LaPorte, the Roughnecks battled Brenham to a 6-6 tie, with Columbia advancing on the strength of more penetrations within the opponent's 20-yard line during the exciting playoff game. A 10-6 win over Belton the following week put West Columbia into the Class 3A state championship game.
Unfortunately legendary Texas high school coach Gordon Wood's Brownwood team was waiting for the Roughnecks and, once again, Coach Hays' team would come up short in their quest for an elusive state crown. Brownwood defeated the Roughnecks 34-16 in the '69 state championship game. A pair of captains on that very successful Columbia High School football team passed away within the past year, Abe McBeth and Page Reynolds. Davis and Johnson, also captains in 1969 along with Vladimir Listak and Bill Burke, were inducted into Columbia High's first group of Hall of Honor members in 2007 with long-time assistant football coach Charles Brand. Coach Hays was among those inducted in 2008.
Charlie Johnson, pictured above carrying the pigskin in a hard-fought 8-6 win over district rival Sweeny in 1969, eventually became an All-NFL selection for the Philadelphia Eagles as a nose tackle. The Hinkle's Ferry product, who was the MVP of the Roughnecks' 1969 state finalist team and a second team all-state pick that season, finished his pro career with the Minnesota Vikings.
Charley Davis of West Columbia, a first team all-state selection in '69, was a top draft choice of the Cincinnati Bengals following an outstanding college career as a running back at the University of Colorado. It was extremely exciting, as a kid living in West Columbia in the 1970s, to be able to watch not one, but two members of the '69 Roughnecks playing college and pro football on television. And words cannot describe how great it was to watch the Super Bowl on TV on January 25, 1981, when former Roughnecks great Charlie Johnson started in the defensive line for the Eagles against the Oakland Raiders. Unfortunately, Johnson's Eagles lost that Super Bowl game, 27-10, in New Orleans.
Jack Raymond Hays was born in Prosper, Texas, and quarterbacked Dallas Sunset High School to the 1950 state championship. Sunset edged Houston Reagan, 14-6, in that game. Hays would later quarterback North Texas State before graduating with a college degree and entering the coaching and teaching profession. After coaching stints at Grapevine and South Oak Cliff, Jack Hays relocated his family to southeast Texas and became El Campo High School's athletics director. In seven years as head coach of the Ricebirds, Hays compiled a 49-23-3 record. His El Campo teams won a pair of district championships, and Hays coached in 15 playoff games during his combined tenures with El Campo and West Columbia.
Jack and his staff, including Charles Brand, Charles Forehand and Ed Derrich, coached the South All Stars in the 1974 THSCA all-star game in the Houston Astrodome. That was my senior year in high school and the period when my association with these four great coaches began. Coach Derrich, who would replace Coach Hays as Columbia High's head football coach when Jack decided to open his insurance business, was my World History teacher and junior varsity football coach when I was a sophomore at Columbia High. Jim Batson was the other JV football coach and taught my science class my sophomore year. Coach Brand was one of my math teachers in high school and remains, along with Jack Hays and Ed Derrich, a good friend to this day.
I applaud Jack Hays for all he has accomplished throughout his life, especially for the honor bestowed upon him tonight at the Athletic Alumni Center at the University of Houston campus. It is especially rewarding to know that, in the aftermath of each and every deserved honor that comes his way, Jack Hays remains such a down-to-earth, easy to talk to gentleman who I will forever think the world of. Congratulations Jack!
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