His father's son

Riley Dodge is returning to the scene of his prime. The former state championship quarterback who learned his craft at the feet of his father, the legendary Todd Dodge, in all likelihood will be named Southlake Carroll’s new head football coach on Monday.

His dad, himself a former state champion quarterback who went on to great success as a UT signal-caller, led Southlake to four state titles in five years, the last one, in 2006, with young Riley helming the offense.

His achievement isn’t likely to be repeated, ever, and Dodge is greatly revered among the Dragon faithful, including, full disclosure, by yours truly.

The elder Dodge, now head coach at Austin Westlake, reportedly was tempted by the chance to return to the place where he gained lasting fame as a football guru and QB mentor. But media reports, if they can be believed, indicate the deal fell through for reasons that aren’t clear.

Denied the services of the king of high school football coaches, Southlake now will settle for the prince, who has never spent a day as a head coach, but who has royal high school football blood coursing through his veins from both sides of his family.

Is Riley up for the job? That’s the question nagging at every Dragon fan’s teeming brain right now. Southlake Carroll, one of the powerhouse football programs in Texas – and by extension in the entire nation – emphatically is NOT a job for a head-coaching newbie.

Carroll has a pampered fan base accustomed to success at the highest levels, and it will demand that the winning continue. It’s been seven years since the last state championship, and Southlake folks are getting a tad antsy. As unreasonable as it sounds, they will fully expect a deep run in the playoffs in Riley Dodge’s inaugural year.

Riley knows what to expect. And if the rumors are true, he will have an important advantage in protecting Carroll’s tradition of winning. It has been reported that Euless Trinity’s famed former head coach, Steve Lineweaver, will be coming to Southlake as a member of the young Dodge’s staff.

 A member of the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame, Lineweaver transformed Trinity into one of the premier football programs in the state and led the Trojans to three state championships before retiring in 2014. Trinity hasn’t been the same since he stepped down, which is as good an indication as any about the importance of getting, and keeping, the right coach.

It’s unclear exactly what job Lineweaver will have on the Dodge staff, but the current storyline is that he will fill a mentoring role for the young coach, giving Riley the benefit of his years of experience and his intimate knowledge of how to motivate young players and guide them to their greatest potential.

Lineweaver shares a common trait with Riley’s father. Players for Todd Dodge and Steve Lineweaver would run through a wall for their coaches. That’s where both men differ from Hal Wasson, the elder Dodge’s successor at Carroll, who left Southlake under a cloud but was just named executive director of athletics at Irving ISD. Many of Wasson’s players, and their parents, loathed him.

Lineweaver knows Southlake Carroll well. The two programs are located only 10 miles apart. They have played several classic games against each other, including their very first meeting – a memorable match before more than 46,000 fans in Texas Stadium during the 2006 playoffs.

That game – between two reigning state champions – was decided when Lineweaver, with his team in the lead, called a fake punt late in the fourth period. The Dragons sniffed out the ruse and took over on downs. The ensuing drive ended with Riley Dodge leaping across the goal line with seconds left, handing Carroll a last-gasp 22-21 victory and expelling Trinity from the playoffs.

Perhaps more significantly, Lineweaver’s son has been an assistant at Carroll for many years, including the period when Riley Dodge wore a Dragon uniform.

I suspect Trinity fans, who enjoy an intense but respectful rivalry with Dragon Nation, are conflicted by the news. Lineweaver is as much an icon in Euless as Todd Dodge is in Southlake. Trojan loyalists love that Lineweaver, who retired in part to escape the pressure and stress of big-time high school football, is back on the sidelines. But they hate, hate that he’ll be in Dragon green and not Trojan black.

Riley Dodge’s other advantage in taking over the Southlake program as a first-time head coach is more intangible. Romantics – and what high school football fan isn’t influenced at least a bit by emotion and imagination – will observe that he’s the scion of two high-achieving football families.

In addition to having the formidable Todd Dodge as his dad, Riley’s maternal grandfather is Ebbie Neptune, athletic director at Austin Westlake for 22 years and head coach from 1982 to 1986. The stadium in which Todd Dodge’s Westlake Chaparrals play is named after him.

For his part, Riley Dodge has packed in valuable experience in spite of his tender years. He’s been an assistant at both Texas A&M and UT, and served as offensive coordinator at both Flower Mound Marcus and, currently, Northwest Justin.

In high school, he was a superstar and a member of three state championship teams. As a sophomore, he was wide receiver for the 2005 state champions, then moved to quarterback as a junior for the 2006 championship season. He was a phenomenal quarterback, fleet-footed with a sure arm. In tight games, and there were several during his time as Dragon quarterback, it was his powerful will to win that carried the team. He was particularly dangerous when flushed out of the pocket, and his broken-field scampers had the crowd on its feet more than once.

He was a natural leader on and off the field. But he also was a generous and loyal teammate, quick to share credit and uncomfortable in the spotlight.

When D Magazine published a controversial story in 2007 about Southlake and its passion for high school football, he was featured in the cover photo for the story, entitled “Why You Should Hate Southlake: Because the Kids are Smarter, Stronger, and Better Looking than Yours, and They Prove It Every Friday Night.”

The story was a fairly accurate and largely benign account of Southlake and its fierce love of Dragon football. But the over-the-top cover and its headline were widely despised and broadly denounced. Riley, it’s said, was particularly chagrined at the cover photo, which showed him radiating arrogance, arms crossed and clad in a gleaming letter jacket, flanked by two other Southlake teen ubermensch.

He said the disdainful expressions on his and his companions’ faces had been coaxed during a lengthy photo session, and none of the kids had any idea the photograph would be paired with such a provocative – and wildly unfair – headline.

In his senior year, the Dragons sailed through the regular season and seemed headed for another state title game when he suffered a separated shoulder against Abilene. The end of his season proved to be the end of the Dragon season, too, and the Run – as the 2002-2006 series of state title games are widely known in Southlake – was over.

Riley, originally committed to UT, instead followed his father to the University of North Texas for the elder Dodge’s ill-fated sojourn in Denton. But Riley’s college career was marred by injury, and he never lived up to the promise of his high school performances. In 2010, he left UNT with two years eligibility and transferred quietly to McNeese State.

As I contemplate the possibilities presented by a new era of what once was known as Dodge Ball, I think back to the 2006 state championship game against Austin Westlake in San Antonio’s Alamodome.

It was my daughter’s freshman year at Carroll, and she performed at halftime with the Carroll Dragon Marching Band. I still have vivid memories of the weekend.

 We stayed in Austin the night before and drove to San Antonio in a downpour. Before leaving Austin, we had breakfast in a crowded restaurant near our hotel. Adorned in Dragon gear, we were a little nervous about our reception, considering our opponent was an Austin team. But the other diners couldn’t have been more gracious, and several wished us luck as we headed out.

The first half was a close-run affair, with the Dragons and the Chaps trading touchdowns. It looked for a while like the game might be won by the last team that scored.

We found out later that Riley Dodge, the linchpin of the Dragon offense, had awakened that day with a severe case of stomach flu. In typical fashion, he had fought through the cramps and other unpleasant symptoms. From the stands, we could detect no letdown by the sturdy Dodge and his fellow Dragons.

The first – and really, only – clue that something was amiss occurred during a Dragon drive at some point in the second half. Riley lined up in the shotgun behind center and crouched slightly, ready to receive the ball. Suddenly, he straightened, turned his head to the right and vomited, an act caught clearly on the televised version of the game but also visible from the stands.

Quickly wiping his mouth, Riley crouched again, barked out the cadence and deftly handled a perfect snap. A second and a half later, he lofted the ball, connecting for a touchdown. The crowd, still bemused by the icky prelude to the pass, exploded in a roar of appreciative joy.

An interesting postscript to the event came a few weeks later when the Dodge family was given a special tour of the White House during a visit to Washington. During the tour, they were granted an audience with President Bush, who had watched the state championship game on TV.

Upon being introduced to Riley, the President grinned and extended his hand. “Hey, you’re the guy who threw up!”

If Riley Dodge can bring to his job as Carroll head coach the same kind of dedication, focused intensity and will to win as he did that rainy day in San Antonio when, fighting chills and stomach-churning nausea, he guided the Dragons to their seventh state title, then Dodge Ball 2.0 will be an unqualified success.

The final score in the Alamodome? Carroll Dragons 43, Westlake Chaparrals 29.

Hal Wasson’s fall from grace

This entry originally was posted Feb. 24 on Facebook. The next day, Wasson accepted an offer from Carroll ISD to pay the remainder of his contract through the 2019 season. He says he plans to pursue another coaching job.

Any day now, word will come down that Hal Wasson, head coach of the Southlake Carroll Dragons, is leaving one of the best high school football jobs in the country.

Officially, Wasson will accept an offer from his employer to buy out the remainder of his contract, and he’ll pack his bags for greener pastures. It’s a fate that awaits most high school football coaches sooner or later. 

But the end for Wasson has been particularly brutal and humiliating, especially for someone who took Southlake Carroll to a state championship in 2011 and rolled up a 121-26 record in 11 seasons as lead protector of the Dragon tradition.

Whether you think he deserves it or not depends largely on where you stand on Wasson, a coach who had the unenviable job of following in the footsteps of the sainted Todd Dodge. Dodge led the Dragons during their legendary – and probably never-to-be-equaled – run of four state championships in five years during the early ’00s and still holds a cherished place in the hearts of all Dragon fans.

How could any mere mortal replace such a towering figure?

Wasson tried, of course, and he wasn’t a complete flop by any means, as his record above proves. But he was no Todd Dodge, in accomplishment or temperament. And that, as much as anything, may be responsible for the messy way in which he departs Dragon Nation.

On Jan. 24, the Carroll school district announced that Wasson had been placed on paid administrative leave while officials investigated his program for possible violations of UIL rules and to determine whether the culture of his program upheld the district’s core values and expectations, the later a nebulous charge that could mean almost anything.

 After four weeks of rumors and speculation – and to the utter delight of Southlake’s many critics – the results of the investigation were released this week and a report sent to the UIL. Meanwhile, Carroll school board members authorized the CISD superintendent to negotiate a contract settlement that would formally end Wasson’s association with the Dragon program.

The list of violations directed at Wasson included holding football camps at times that violated UIL regulations, holding afterschool practices during the offseason, requiring football players to work out on days they had games in other sports and, finally, allowing newly hired coaches to supervise practices before their contracts legally took effect.

I consider that list of particulars pretty thin gruel for the kind of public spectacle the “investigation” produced throughout the DFW area. They’re no better than misdemeanors, the kind of activities you’ll find in many, if not most, high school programs and a far cry from some of the rumored wrong-doing that had tongues wagging furiously among those who follow high school sports. Are they the kind of rule-breaking that should cost a successful, winning coach his job and subject him to the prolonged public shaming that Wasson has endured for the past month? Hardly. If they are, then football coaches all over the state had better dust off their resumes and reconsider their spring and summer practice schedules.

But there is more to this story than that. Of course.

Wasson is a man hard to love from afar. His pre- and after-game interviews, full of platitudes and devoid of substance, were sheer torture, and in 11 years watching him on the sidelines, I never once saw him embrace a player. Perhaps he did and I missed it, but he was not an outwardly emotional guy with his young charges, and that always made me a little suspicious of the man. After all, football is an emotional game, and watching these young athletes give their all on the field for nothing more than a love of the game, hell, I get a little teary just thinking about it.

Wasson was a rigid task-master, by all accounts, heavy on criticism and light on praise. Unlike Dodge, who treated everyone on his squad – from superstar to practice teamer – as valued members of the Dragon family, essential elements of the tradition of success, Wasson was said to favor his starters first, last and always.

Not everyone can be a starter, and the kids who help prepare the varsity for its time under Friday Night Lights play a vital role in the success of big-time high school football, too. Dodge understood that, but Wasson didn’t – at least according to his critics.

Full disclosure: My son is one of those critics. Ethan played freshman football for the Dragons, but then dropped out and took up lacrosse. Much of the reason for that decision was the lingering effects of a concussion he suffered in an 8^th-grade game. But Wasson, who he loathed, played a part, too.

“He’s a phony, Dad,” my son confided to me one day. “He shows up for our practice and struts around. Everything he says is BS.”

Ethan claims, and I believe him, that Wasson was widely despised by many of his players. The parents of some of his friends who stayed in the football program confirm this.

When participation rates in Carroll football dropped, some parents pointed the finger of blame at Wasson. Kids didn’t want to play for him, and parents didn’t trust him with their kids. Increasing concerns about concussions no doubt played an important role, too, but the whisper campaign against Wasson steadily grew.

For many Dragon fans, their dislike of Wasson was formed early – during his first season as Dragon coach in 2007. During the third round of the playoffs that year, the reigning state champion Dragons, helmed by Todd Dodge’s son Riley, played Abilene in Texas Stadium.

With Southlake trailing 9-7 late in the first half, Riley Dodge, who had led the Dragons to their 7^th state title the year before, dropped back for a pass at the Abilene 10. Just as he released the go-ahead TD throw, he was hit hard and left the game with a separated shoulder.

His backup, Kyle Padron, youngest member of a Carroll football dynasty, performed brilliantly, keeping Southlake in the game despite the loss of the exemplary Dodge.

In the closing minutes of the game, Abilene held a razor-thin 22-21 lead when Padron took the Dragons the length of the field, arriving at the Abilene 10 with 10 seconds left and the clock running. The smart play, the play that every man, woman and child on the Southlake side of Texas Stadium confidently expected, was for Wasson to call Carroll’s final timeout and send out his field goal unit.

Instead, Wasson’s staff ordered Padron to spike the ball, thus stopping the clock and saving the timeout for…what? Padron had never received a snap under center during a game, but he hurried to the line nonetheless. He and the center failed to make a clean exchange, and Padron fumbled the ball. Abilene recovered and ran out the clock. Thus ended the storied Run, a five-year period between 2002 and 2006 when Carroll won four state championships.

In post-game interviews, Wasson blamed the loss on a lack of execution by his offense, rather than the coaching blunder that every Dragon fan – and every player – knew it to be.

It was a despicable thing to do. A dishonorable thing to do. A stupid thing to do. Padron and his teammates had played their hearts out and had come very close to pulling off one of the great comebacks in Dragon history. And Wasson rewarded their courage, skill and determination by kicking them in the teeth.

That was more than 10 years ago, and my face still flushes red at the memory of it.

Over the years, my feelings about Wasson softened somewhat. That’s what winning does. And then there’s the marvelous memory of the 2011 season when Kenny Hill and a wild gray fox had starring roles in a storybook season that ended with the Dragons winning their 8^th state title.

At the end of the day, however, I just can’t embrace Wasson. I still can’t get that 2007 post-game interview out of my head, nor can I completely discount my son’s scorn for him as the petty grudge of a pissed-off teenager.

Perhaps he doesn’t deserve the shabby treatment he’s received from Carroll ISD. But in assessing Wasson’s fall from grace, I keep coming back to one thing.

During the past four weeks, not a single one of Wasson’s players, past or present, has stepped forward to publicly defend him, to attest to his character, to his skill as a coach and to his value as a mentor. Not a single one. That fact speaks volumes to me. It is a bitter and awful rebuke.