Former Tech QB later applied football acumen as A&M coach
COLLEGE STATION — Tom Wilson, a former Texas A&M coach with a lifelong reputation for beating the odds, died Wednesday in his hometown of Corsicana, following a long fight with cancer. He was 72.
Wilson coached the Aggies from midway through the 1978 season, in taking over for the resigned Emory Bellard, through 1981. Wilson posted a 21-19 record, including 14-15 in Southwest Conference play.
He joined Bellard’s staff in 1975 as offensive coordinator, and Wilson’s 1979 squad defeated two No. 6 teams that season: Penn State and Texas, the latter Wilson’s most memorable victory in his A&M tenure.
“It seemed like the Longhorns already had their bags packed for the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans,” former A&M defensive end Jacob Green recalled. Retired in 1999
Wilson exited A&M a winner, with a 33-16 victory over Oklahoma State in the 1981 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., with quarterback Gary Kubiak earning MVP honors. Wilson was fired shortly after that 7-5 season and replaced with Pitt’s Jackie Sherrill.
A&M’s president at the time, Frank Vandiver, wrote in January 1982: “It was my lamentable duty … to inform Mr. Tom Wilson that his services have been terminated. He accepted that decision as the gentleman he is.”
Longtime Chronicle reporter David Barron recalled watching Wilson, following a victory at Texas in 1980, rest his head on a desk in a Memorial Stadium coaches office and cry in relief. A&M finished that season 4-7.
In addition to Green and Kubiak, the former Texans and current Denver Broncos coach, Wilson also coached defensive end Ray Childress, running back Curtis Dickey, kicker Tony Franklin and receiver Gerald Carter, among other standouts at A&M. Childress went on to a superb career with the Oilers.
Wilson later coached at Palestine High and his alma mater Corsicana High, before retiring in 1999. His wife, Daun, died earlier this year. The couple had two children, Mark and Julie.
Wilson attended Texas Tech, where he was an undersized quarterback who scratched his way up the depth chart in the mid1960s.
Burle Pettit, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal editor emeritus, told the newspaper he remembered thenRed Raiders coach J.T. King claiming of the unheralded Wilson: “He took the fourth team and beat the third. He took the third team and beat the second, and then when he took the second team and beat the first, we started to get the picture.”
King once described Wilson as the “smartest player I ever coached.” Wilson entered Tech’s athletics hall of fame in 1990.
After his firing at A&M following 3½ seasons, Wilson returned to Tech as an assistant coach, and he later moved on to Palestine and Corsicana, the latter in 1993. He led his old school to the Class 4A state semifinals in 1994 and to the 4A title game in 1997. Played by his wits
Nearly four decades earlier in Corsicana, Wilson knew he needed to use his smarts if he was going to have any chance at playing the physical sport.
“I realized then that if I wanted to play football, it would have to be as a quarterback,” he later reminisced. “I was too slow to be a running back and not big enough to be a lineman.
“I had to play where I could think my way around.”