Remembering legendary football coach Owen Hauck
In more than four decades of coaching, one of Owen Hauck’s biggest legacies was the litany of former players who became head football coaches themselves at the high school level.
A long list of former players and coaches were mourning Hauck Wednesday after he passed away at the age of 88. Hauck was head football coach at Highlands and Mt. Healthy but spent the majority of his career at Boone County High School.
“He taught a lot about life through football,” said Bryson Warner, a 1992 BCHS graduate and former head coach at Ryle. “It’s not about getting knocked down, it’s how soon you get back up.”
Hauck became head coach at Boone in 1972, spending 25 years there with a record of 210-101. He led the Rebels to the state championship game in Class 4A four different times, the last in 1994 with Shaun Alexander, the record-setting running back who was the most valuable player of the National Football League in 2005.
Wednesday morning, Alexander tweeted a tribute message to Hauck, "Love you Coach Hauck! Thank Jesus for allowing a great man like you in my life. You taught us how to fight & be a winner.”
Alexander then posted several of his favorite quotes from Hauck, including "Men, the other team knows all our plays. Good, we know them too. The question is can they stop it…..If we can't get a yard we got major problems with our program….We will play anyone anytime and I guarantee they are going to feel it in the morning… We don't run up the score, we just run the ball. If you can't stop the run, it will be a tough night for you…Don't deviate, men. If somebody is in your path, go through them."
Hauck was demanding but fair, and always fun to be around, said Skip Hicks, who played for Hauck at Highlands and was a player on Hauck’s only state championship team in 1964 with the Bluebirds. Hicks last saw Hauck two months ago.
“He attended a lot of functions and he would always pull me aside and talk football,” Hicks said. “That’s the way he was. He was a joy to play for. The rules were different, then. We weren’t allowed to take our helmets off, we weren’t allowed to unbuckle our chin strap or get water.”
Hicks was an assistant coach and defensive coordinator for 15 years, 11 of them at Highlands, before moving on to administration in 1987.
“I spent 30 years in education looking back on him being a mentor to me and everyone, helping me through the years as a coach,” Hicks said. “I never coached with him but I always coached against him, which was enjoyable. He was tough on us but he instilled that discipline and work ethic that I carried on to my days as a coach.”
Hauck took over for the legendary Homer Rice as Highlands head coach in 1963, and had an overall record of 48-8-1, then went 26-21-3 in four seasons at Mt. Healthy. His 258 career wins in Northern Kentucky is second in the history of the area to Bob Schneider.
Boone County renamed its stadium in his honor in 2003, and at varying times in recent years at least five Northern Kentucky schools had a former Hauck player as its head coach. Hauck would spend a lot of Friday nights going to stadiums and seeing his proteges lead their teams on the field.
“He had such a tremendous impact on our lives,” Warner said. “He was always there for us. If he saw someone who could make that impact, he helped us try to duplicate that. We learned a lot from what he taught us. All of us who played for him took a lot from him and tried to teach it to our players.”
As news of Hauck’s failing health spread last weekend, many of his former players spent time catching up with each other and going to visit him.
“You grew up wanting to play for Coach Hauck,” Warner said. “You kept up with him and the program at all times. All these guys were so close. It wasn’t just the guys in our classes. He never had to do roll call because everyone was there… It was fun. Conditioning was fun. He taught us a work ethic. We respected him so much that we didn’t want to disappoint him.
“He made Boone a great place to grow and learn life through football.”