Reminder: Tarleton alumni Wood, Gambill coaching in state finals today

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Aledo High School head football coach Steve Wood (left) and Allen High School head coach Terry Gambill will lead their respective teams during the UIL State Championship games on Saturday, Dec. 23, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Flash Staff Report
TheFlashToday.com

(December 23, 2017) — You may have read it here earlier this week, but today is another big day for alumni of Tarleton State University at the UIL Texas high school football championships.

The final three games of the high school season are today, and Tarleton will be well represented as the final chapter of another historic year is written at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Steve Wood and Terry Gambill are no strangers to football success going back to Wood’s days helping the Texans to Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association champoinships and Gambill’s time dominating the trenches so fiercely would return to Stephenville to be inducted into the university’s athletic hall of fame.

They are also not strangers to the home of the Dallas Cowboys or to playing for state championships. Wood has been defensive coordinator or head coach for all of Aledo’s six state championships over the past eight seasons. He has the Bearcats primed to fight for seven titles in nine years in today’s first contest against College Station. The Conference 5A Division II championship begins at 11 a.m.

Gambill has been to the state final with Waco Midway and now with Allen, a suburb of Dallas, where he overseas the largest UIL program at the largest public high school in the state. His Eagles are ranked No. 1 in Texas by the Associated Press and No. 4 in the nation by USA Today, but make no mistake, the going gets no tougher than a bout with Lake Travis, a constant finals contender and champion over dating back to 2007 that just last week destroyed and shut out national powerhouse Katy in a semifinal contest.

Allen and Lake Travis face off at 3 p.m. in perhaps the most anticipated high school football contest in the nation this year. Rest assured, Gambhill left Waco Midway in good shape. Midway is playing for the 6A Division II title at 7 p.m.

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Past Stephenville High School assistant coach Hank Carter is the highest paid high school coach in Texas at Lake Travis, a suburb of Austin, and coaches one of the few teams that can be discussed among the most elite programs like those led by :Wood and Gambill. Carter went with past Stephenville head coach Chad Morris to Lake Travis following the 2007 season, and was promoted to head coach when Morris, recently named head coach at the University of Arkansas, left to begin climbing the rungs of he college coaching ladder.

Tarleton has additional on the coaching staffs, for sure at Aledo. Defensive line coach Rocky Jones and offensive coordinator Robbie Jones are both Tarleton graduates and each began their careers at Dublin in the mid-1990s.

There may be other Tarleton graduates coaching today, too, as we certainly can’t keep track of them all. Richard Barrett, Tarleton alumnus and head coach at Kennedale, fell short in the 4A Division I championship Friday, but two assistant coaches from Strawn celebrated a six-man title and two assistant coaches at 3A Division I champ Rockdale will also soon be ordering championship rings.

The kinesiology department at Tarleton has long been among the state’s leaders in producing graduates who become coaches – and eventually head coaches – in Texas high schools.

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