By Brandon C. Williams
Editor, The Post Newspaper
Wade Oliphant once walked the halls of La Marque High School’s athletic department, hurrying to get onto the football field for practice or scurrying out the Cougars locker room inbound for his next class.
Life — and opportunity — brought Oliphant back this spring. The community he grew up in now turns to him as La Marque’s new head football coach/athletic director assigned to the task of restoring the roar of a Cougars program that has lost the bite it formally had when Oliphant was part of Alan Weddell’s state championship teams of 1995-97.
“Having the state title experience gave me instant credibility with the players in the locker room,” said Oliphant, who arrived home after spending the previous four years as the offensive coordinator of George Ranch High School. “One of the first things I told them was that ‘I was once you. I used to run these halls hoping to one day graduate and succeed.’ That has helped them understand me and what I want to do for them not just as athletes, but also young men who will go out in the world and make an account for themselves once they leave here.”
Oliphant takes the student in student-athlete to heart, and does so with a passion. His mother was an administrator in the then-La Marque Independent School District, and his wife, Anita, is the assistant principal at Guajardo Elementary in the Texas City Independent School District. The value of education has been carried to the Oliphant’s two daughters, Anyia and Jordyn and is already flowing into their infant son, Kyler.
Having roots in the community has already injected a sense of excitement into the upcoming season, which begins with the annual Clash of the Causeway against rival Galveston Ball at Courville Stadium on August 26. Fans and supporters that had strayed away from the program over the past few seasons have been enthused over having “one of our own” return to patrol the sidelines.
“The support has been very strong thus far,” said Oliphant. “The people who remember me and my family know that I deeply care about the community. We have to have their support in order to succeed, and that means having them come out and let these kids know they’re behind them regardless of what the scoreboard says at the end of the night.”
Ah, the scoreboard. Owning the scoreboard was nearly automatic for Oliphant and the Cougars in his three years with the program, as La Marque went 43-5 in his three years on varsity, hoisting the Class 4A title at the conclusion of each season.
The scoreboard hasn’t been as kind to the Cougars over the past decade or so. Since advancing to the Class 4A, Division II state championship game in 2010 and the 4A, Region III finals the following season, La Marque has taken a slow and steady decline. The Coogs have not reached the regional quarterfinals since 2014 and have seen their playoff hopes end in the bi-district round in five of the past six seasons.
It is that backdrop that Oliphant and his staff arrive at. From the first day, he decided that in order to change the future, he had to shake up the past.
“I erased everything,” he said. “Nothing from last year matters. I have a great respect for what (former LM and current Texas City) coach (Shone) Evans did for this program, but I have to be my own person, and that means doing what I was taught to do.”
Shaking up the past also meant hiring former La Marque players and coaches who fully understand the tradition and mindset of being a Cougar. Ten of the team’s 12 coaches once put on the blue and gold on Friday nights, including the likes of Mike Benefield and Cody Douglas, both of whom won state titles with Oliphant.
Oliphant deeply understands the expectations of La Marque’s fan base, and while a deep playoff run is optimistic, he also knows the path of coming home will take time, time that the community is more than willing to provide him.
