Andale coach Gary O’Hair has long been to the top of the mountain

When Gary and Lisa O’Hair look out the windows of their home in Andale, they do not see mountains.

Outside of those windows, instead, is a crazed football community that has produced outstanding players for years. As Andale’s football coach for the past 15 years, O’Hair has had something to do with the town’s devotion to football. It helps explain why the Indians are 4-0 this season, heading into Friday’s home game against Clearwater, and 146-28 since O’Hair, a 10-year assistant at Andale after finishing college at Kansas State, arrived after 11 seasons as coach at Southwestern Heights.

O’Hair has a passion for football. He has a longing for mountains.

“We’ve always taken our vacations to the mountains,” he said. “We’ve always dreamed of moving to Colorado or New Mexico. I’m an avid fly fisherman, golfer, hunter — there are lots of things I love to do.”

And after this football season and this school year, O’Hair plans to do most of them in the mountains of northeastern New Mexico, about four hours from where he grew up in Elkhart.

“We’ve probably been talking about doing this since 2011, trying to figure out whether it’s going to be Colorado or New Mexico,” Lisa O’Hair said. “But I think Colorado gets too cold for me. I like some heat and New Mexico is drier, hotter and has great summers.”

O’Hair told his football team and Andale’s school administrators during early practices that this was going to be his final season.

“It was tough,” he said. “You get attached to the players, to the coaches and to the community. But this thing has been pulling us for a while now. Then again, we’re having so much fun here and do we really want to leave?”

The O’Hairs took two trips to New Mexico during the summer and even started looking at houses. As the move becomes more real, it also becomes more surreal.

“I don’t know that it’s all really hit him yet,” Lisa O’Hair said of her husband. “I think he’s really hungry for that one more state championship. It’ll probably be after the season when all these thoughts settle in a little bit more that it really starts to get tough.”

O’Hair, 58, has guided Andale to all of its three state championships in 2006 (4A), 2007 (4A) and 2014 (4A-II). He is guiding one of the most consistently-good football programs in Kansas. So even the pull of mountains meets resistance.

“Having been here before, I knew this was a special place,” O’Hair said. “This is a good community and as a football coach you’re going to love it because the parents here want their kids to play football. In general, these are people who demand a lot from their kids and they expect their kids to work hard and for us to push them. In some communities, coaches fight that. Coaches try to be demanding in those places and parents don’t support them.”

O’Hair, though, has a chance to do what so many coaches and educators relish — coach or teach long enough to be able to collect a pension while still young enough to pursue an opportunity in another school district.

O’Hair won’t necessarily be through with coaching or teaching after the school year. He’ll just be doing it in New Mexico. That’s the plan, at least.

“There’s just a real serenity and peacefulness in those mountains,” O’Hair said. “My wife feels the same way. My dad was a big outdoorsman when I was growing up and that’s what I like to do when I have spare time. I enjoy going someplace where I can get away from everything.”

For many years, football has been a huge part of O’Hair’s “everything.”

“We have a really good team this year,” he said. “We run the football, play solid defense and we have a quarterback (senior Taylor Richter) who is a real dual threat. He’s a good runner and he throws the ball well. When we have thrown it, we’ve been successful. Which helps.”

O’Hair, though, admits that his approach to football is old-fashioned and lacks much innovation. He likes tough kids who like to play a tough brand of football.

“With most of our teams, it’s not like we have a lot of outstanding individual players,” O’Hair said. “But we have a bunch of kids who work hard. (Richter) is a great kid and a great leader and he can make plays. But I think one of the reasons I’ve been successful is because I’ve stuck with a lot of the same things over the years. Some people might think we’re outdated, but we’re still doing what we did when I got here. These kids know that and because of that they’re confident in what we’re doing.”

O’Hair loves coaching football in Andale. But there’s an undeniable pull that is becoming harder for him and his wife to resist.

“You dream about something for so long that eventually you wonder if it’s ever going to happen,” Lisa O’Hair said. “Or whether you’re just giving it lip service.”

Gary O’Hair says the time for talk is nearing an end.

This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Andale coach Gary O’Hair has long been to the top of the mountain."