Coach Chuck Moser
1917-1995
Chuck Moser symbolized what's right about Texas football. He was a winner, of course. He compiled a 141-28-2 won-loss record as a high school coach in Missouri and Texas, winding up with a 78-7-2 mark during his seven year reign from 1953 through 1959. he became athletic director of the Abilene public schools when Cooper High came into being in 1960. His Abilene High teams won three straight state championships, 1954-56, and six straight division titles after barely losing out to eventual state champion, Odessa, 19-14, in 1953. He made national headlines when Abilene High's 49-game winning streak set a national record in 1957.
But Moser brought much more than winning to Abilene. Time magazine asked its regional correspondent to do a story about Moser's record, emphasizing the win-at-all costs philosophy it believed to be inherent in Texas high schools. When the writer responded that Moser stressed academics, class attendance and citizenship, Time decided the story lacked reader interest.
Eagle-mania did exist, of course. Rose Park Stadium was always packed, huge lines of cars cluttered highways to Odessa, San Angelo, Lubbock, even Amarillo for Eagle road games. But players knew that a bad report from one of their teachers would jeopardize their playing time, and at the least could cause them to take multiple laps around the playing field after practice.
Moser made the Abilene High School Eagles the most feared and most respected team in the state during his seven year stint as head coach. He produced 15 all-staters in those seven years. David Parks (1959) went on to be the No. 1 pro draft choice when he graduated from Texas Tech. James Welch (1955) was a longtime defensive star at Baltimore and special teams captain. Moser's 1956 team produced six sophomore starters at major universities and three others who lettered as sophomores.
Coach Moser also supported other sports. The Eagles won state baseball and track championships while he was football coach and the basketball team lost in regionals in 1957 to eventual state champion Pampa. Glynn Gregory, his most heralded player, was al-district in three sports and all-state in two, including two years in football.
He produced leaders as well. Many of his players captained their teams in college. Moser was particularly proud that most of his players became highly successful in their careers, and good citizens as well.
Before his first state championship season in August 1954, two starters from his 1953 team went to California when two-a-days began the week before school started. The integrity of his Abilene program was on the line. Moser told the team that it was up to the players to decide if the two absentees could rejoin them. Then he said, "But I vote No." He left the room while the players agreed with their coach.
Moser set the example for his players. He was president of the Abilene Kiwanis Club (he became a Rotarian in the 1970's after he moved to Bryan as an assistant coach at Texas A&M), headed his division of the United Way, was president of the Boy Scout Council and chairman of the board at his church. He taught the seventh grade boys Sunday School class, even when the Eagles played on Saturday.
Born September 9, 1918 at Chillicothe, Missouri, he played football, basketball and baseball there, became all-conference center on Don Faurot's University of Missouri Tiger team that went to the Sugar Bowl in 1939 and began his coaching career in Lexington, Missouri. After one year, he joined the Army Air Corps. He became a navigator at Kelly Air Base in San Antonio, where he met his future wife who was a student at the University of Texas. They married October 25, 1942, while stationed at Hondo. They had two daughters, Janie and Glenn. After World War II, he coached at McAllen before taking the Abilene job in the spring of 1953.
His skill as a motivator, psychologist and innovator were as essential as his football knowledge, his thorough planning and his detailed pre-game practice schedule. He was a master of surprise. Scouting paved the way in 1955 for perhaps the most perfectly-played first half (offensively and defensively) in school history, as Abilene won its second straight state championship, upsetting Tyler 33-13. Abilene shut out the heralded Tyler quarterback, Charles Milstead and led 33-0 at the half.
In winning Abilene's 49th straight game in Amarillo in 1957 against which many coaches at the time said was the best high school team in Texas history, he found four areas that might slow down the Sandies. They helped. Even then it took a fourth quarter fourth down fake punt at midfield to nail down the victory.
One of his innovations was the MUD defense. The pros picked it up a decade later and called it the safety blitz. It was the only way he could slow the beautifully executed quarterback option attack by Amarillo's fleet backs. Though the Amarillo game was on a dry field, he labeled the defense MUD because he said a sane person would never take the chance except on a muddy field when the other team was unlikely or unable to pass.
Moser retired from coaching after a brief stint with Texas A&M's Emory Bellard, a former opposing high school coach at Breckenridge and San Angelo. He died in Bryan in May, 1995, at the age of 76.
Written by Dick Tarpley,
former editor
Abilene Reporter-news