New coach, new hopes for Clovis football

After coaching football in Texas for nearly three decades, Stan Hodges thought he would be fine retiring from it full-time to cash in on the oil industry in May of 2023.

But there Hodges was, "bawling like a baby" in his 2022 Ford F-150, while driving through oil sites in west Texas' Permian Basin last summer because of how much he missed the job that gave him reward and fulfillment.

"I was like, 'Man, I don't know if I can do this,'" he said he thought to himself.

Turns out he couldn't. So, despite experiencing a surge in income, Hodges left his oil job last June, began applying for coaching opportunities and was eventually hired to take over Clovis High School.

As CHS' season kicks off at 7 p.m. Friday in Farmington, Hodges is back doing what he loves. That means developing Clovis youngsters into high character men while building a winning program.

"Being out on the oil field probably made me appreciate the coaching profession even more," Hodges said.

But the job won't be easy. Hodges is tasked with injecting pride back into a program that is in desperate need of some.

Known as "The Beast from the East," CHS won 11 state championships between 1977-2001, but none since then.

Kris Everhart, a CHS offensive line coach, keenly remembers those glory days when the town was "almost shut down on Friday nights." But those days are long gone. Since head coach Eric Roanhaus – who claimed 10 of those titles – retired in 2016, CHS hasn't finished over .500 in back-to-back full seasons.

Making matters more difficult, Hodges was hired in late June when former Wildcats head coach Andrew McCraw unexpectedly left to become offensive coordinator at Eastern New Mexico University. Hodges' predecessors – McCraw, who was hired in 2022, and Cal Fullerton, who was hired to replace Roanhaus – both struggled to establish the dynasty because of late hirings, according to Everhart.

“Things have dwindled down (and) tradition has slowed,” Everhart added.

Lonnie Baca, Clovis High School’s athletic director, feels strongly that Hodges can reverse this. His reasoning comes from Hodges' background, preparation and passion in his job interview. Though they’d never met, Baca offered Hodges shortly after their first Zoom interview.

"His (Hodges) resume proved to us that he had a tremendous amount of experience," Baca said when asked why Hodges was selected over six other candidates.

These are the same reasons why Hodges has already put a down payment on a house in Clovis – despite being hired on a year-to-year basis. “I may be here five, 10, 15 years,” said Hodges, who’ll be paid a $16,000 coaching stipend and will teach weight training classes this year.

Hodges' promising track record began in San Antonio while a member of a Judson High School squad that won a state championship in 2002. Then, in 2005, he took over a moribund Kountze High School program in east Texas that was well known for its 99-0 loss against Orangefield High School in 1978. Within two years, he helped KHS notch back-to-back winning seasons. In 2013, he took over a Hull-Daisetta High School program in east Texas that finished below .500 in three of its previous four seasons. From 2013-20, Hodges led it to five playoff appearances.

In 2021, Hodges moved to west Texas' Permian High School – the town where the iconic book and movie "Friday Night Lights" was based – to coach running backs.

And similar to Gary Gaines, PHS' revered coach who was the star of “Friday Night Lights,” Hodges said he cares more about the lives he changed than the games he won.

Just take the story of Drew Dawson: A lineman at Kountze High School who lacked confidence, a father and a promising future when stepping on campus.

Dawson, a lineman, said Hodges became a "father figure" over the next few years and helped him find the self-belief that morphed him into a beastly force and the school's first player to land a scholarship. After graduating from college, Dawson’s now been a combat meteorologist in the Air Force for the last decade.

"Everything he's doing is for a purpose and it's to make the world a better place," said Dawson, who remembers when Hodges helped repair the community after Hurricane Rita ravaged it.

But the success story that got Hodges misty-eyed occurred a few years before that. "You're getting me choked up," Hodges said while reminiscing about Jeremy Cross.

The pair met when Cross – a 300-pound, 5-foot-9-inch sophomore whose low self-esteem left him not caring about his health, report card and future – went out to compete for Hodges' wrestling team at Judson High School.

Despite losing his first "40 matches" Hodges never stopped encouraging Cross. By his senior year, Cross said he was an honor roll regular who was winning matches and graduated from Texas State.

“I don't know what he would have done with his life,” Hodges said, fighting back tears.

Cross, who is now a wrestling coach at San Marcos High School in Texas, said Hodges inspired him to enter the profession and provide for others what Hodges provided for him.

Hodges said his own inspiration to coach traces back to when he was a running back for Angelo State. Though he wasn’t a starter, head coach Jerry Vandergriff appreciated his tenacity and kept pushing him.

It illustrated to him how life was about effort, attitude, relationships and personal growth – not results.

Upholding those values helped keep Hodges in coaching despite knowing he could make more money in a different industry. But that altruism faded away.

Hodges said his path to oil began in 2021 when he moved to Odessa, Texas, which is located near the Permian Basin: The highest producing oil field in the United States as of 2019, according to Texas Monthly. He saw how much others were making and suddenly a boosted salary became alluring.

The money-driven career pivot was solidified when Hodges, who taught throughout his coaching career, reached retirement age and wanted to "double dip" his income by adding his oil wages on top of his pension.

Hodges said “he got in touch with a friend of a friend named James Starnes” whose passion for oil convinced him that it was time to leave football full-time in May of 2023.

“So, I threw myself out there," Hodges said.

The days started at 4:30 a.m. with Pop Tarts. By 5 a.m. he was in his 2022 Ford F-150 driving throughout Texas from one oil site to the next. Conversations between stops were sparse, brief and about businesses.

“My job was to go to do a job, and their job was to do a job,” Hodges said of his new work relationships. “There wasn't any, ‘Hey, how's your family doing?’”

After a couple of months, Hodges added "30,000 miles" to his odometer, made the most money of his life and had never felt so unfulfilled professionally.

Hodges said he started to miss football – especially the people – on his first day of work. But he knew he really missed it when he sobbed because he longed to be at two-a-days.

Knowing he needed to be back on the sidelines, Hodges said he didn't listen to podcasts and hardly turned on the radio. Rather, he said he used the “solitary confinement” to think of how he could improve as a leader, build a cohesive team and offensive schemes.

To illustrate how much he missed football, he was elated when coaches at Permian High School invited him to take an unpaid role as a consultant. During lulls and after shifts, he watched the team’s practice film, attended games and found himself talking about it for "six to eight hours" with other PHS coaches on the weekend.

“All these guys are in the office, like, ‘Dude, you retired what are you doing here?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I may be retired, but I'm not dead,” Hodges quipped back.

Come this past June, a year after he started, Hodges walked into his oil boss' home and told him he was getting back into coaching.

"I knew that that's something that you were missing in your life," his boss responded.

Less than two months later, Hodges was heading westward to Clovis. He’s excited, but he’s aware of how difficult this season will be.

The Wildcats aren't returning a slew of starters and players are still getting used to Hodges' scheme.

"Takes a minute to get adjusted to. But I love the way it goes. I love how we have different formations and everything," sophomore quarterback Javier Jimenez said.

In the short off season, Everhart has seen passion from Hodges and Wildcats that led him to say, "I can see the Beast from the East rising back."

"It's been really inspiring," added Matthew Ochoa, a junior linebacker who's projected by Hodges to be a team pillar.

And maybe Hodges can't get the Beast from the East to rise again. Nonetheless, when he makes the six-hour trek to Farmington in a bus – and not his 2022 Ford F-150 – and with others – not in "solitary confinement" – he won’t have to question if he’s where he belongs.

"I doubled my salary, but you couldn't put a price tag on being called coach," Hodges said.