Memories linger for Wagner

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

Forget that trip to Tuscaloosa to play Alabama, truth be told, this is the week that Bob Wagner hasn't been relishing.

There are more formidable football teams on his schedule, but no tougher homecomings.

For seven months, ever since he became Texas-El Paso's defensive coordinator, Saturday's game with Hawai'i is the date that has stared back at him from the calendar. It is the game that has stirred memories and emotions, tugging at the heart even while ripping at old wounds.

It is six years since he was replaced as UH's head coach after a 58-49-3 record, but the passage of time has done little to dull the feelings that stepping into Aloha Stadium are likely to reawaken.

For sure there will be a quickening of the pulse when the UH band strikes up "Hawaii Five-O," and probably a chicken skin moment when the home team takes the field.

Though he has been through this once before, it still takes some getting used to watching somebody else in a lei and headphones run the show on mauka sidelines.

For this is where he spent his fall Saturdays for 19 seasons, the majority of his coaching life. And it is still home to Wagner and his family in ways that not even his native Ohio nor subsequent stops in Tucson, Ariz., or El Paso, Texas, can approximate.

"I spent a good part of my life there (10 years as an assistant and nine as a head coach)," Wagner said. "My wife (Gloria) went to school there; we met there and our daughter (Christy) was born there. It is still home. Being at UH was never just a job for me or I wouldn't have stayed for so long."

UH's second-winningest football coach still maintains a North Shore condo and faithfully returns every summer for vacation.

But the separation from UH still pains the man who led it to its first two NCAA bowl appearances and breakthrough 1992 WAC title. It was a firing that former president Kenneth Mortimer later came to regret as "clumsily done."

"Fortunately I've never been through a divorce, yet in my mind what happened was kind of like a divorce where you didn't see it coming," Wagner said. "One where things get a little rocky and, before you can get counseling, your wife says, 'I'm outta here.'"

Wagner, who had put refurbishing the practice field on his wish list for years, says he was glad UH finally got one. But he couldn't summon the will to tour the new one when he visited a year ago.

Trying to stop the nation's No. 2 passing offense Saturday won't be easy, either. Attempting to check his emotions at the gate that night might be tougher.