By Tracy Gupton
After coaching his son Jeff in the 1979-80 school year, former Columbia High School athletics director and head football coach Jack Hays put away his whistle and closed the book on his illustrious coaching career. Today the West Columbia community is mourning the passing of this legendary football coach who touched so many lives in the many years he and his wife Ellen were valuable residents of our little town.
“The final gun sounded on the extraordinary life of Coach Jack R. Hays on April 27, 2026,” reads his newspaper obituary. “He was 92 years old. Born on November 4th, 1933, in Prosper, Texas, Jack grew up in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and attended Sunset High School. He excelled at baseball and football and was an integral member of the Bison’s 1950 state championship football team. He earned a football scholarship to North Texas State, and it was there he met and married a beauty queen, Ellen Mae Sikora, who would be the love of his life for 73 years.”
In that last year of his high school coaching career, Jack’s youngest child Jeff Hays was the valedictorian of the 1980 graduating class of seniors at Columbia High School. Jeff was given the Marvin Gray Most Valuable Player award at the Roughnecks 1979 football banquet by Charlie Johnson who had received the same award by Coach Hays a decade earlier at the 1969 Columbia High football banquet. In 1979 Charlie Johnson was in the middle of a very successful pro football career in the NFL, having earned All Pro status in multiple seasons as a Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman. Jeff Hays went on to play college football as a defensive back for the Air Force Academy and was presented his diploma by President Ronald Reagan.
It was that color photograph of Air Force officer Jeff Hays posing with the president of the United States on the wall at Hays Insurance in West Columbia that always stood out to me when I made my many visits to handle my personal insurance business with Coach Hays, Ellen and their son Jackie. For many years I had season tickets to Roughnecks football games on the 50-yard line, high up in the stands at Griggs Field where the two Coach Hays’s would sit directly in front of me. Jackie Hays coached high school football like his father until the two both left coaching to pursue a private business venture, selling insurance in West Columbia. Cory Hagan, who graduated from Columbia High School with my son, Bret Gupton, eventually partnered with Jack and Jackie Hays before taking over their business.
Just as Cory and Bret played varsity baseball together for the Roughnecks in high school, Jackie Hays was a running back for the Roughnecks JV and varsity football teams with my brother, Cody Gupton, in 1969 and 1970. Cody, who passed away 10 years ago, loved to sit with me and my wife Peggy at Roughnecks’ home football games and chat with his former teammate and their high school coach, Jack Hays. I recall telling my older brother one time, “Why don’t you bring the conversation into the 21st century,” after Cody constantly reminded Jack and Jackie about football games from the early 1970s. One of Cody’s favorite stories from “the good ol’ days” involved Charlie Johnson and Jack Hays. When the Roughnecks were practicing for their big playoff run in 1969, Cody was quarterbacking the JV offense while the varsity’s starting defense was lined up on the practice field across from them. Senior nose guard Page Reynolds burst past the center and was in the process of sacking Cody when my brother threw the football just to get rid of it. According to Cody’s story, Charlie Johnson told Cody to stay down because his pass had hit Coach Hays in the head while he was observing the practice from the sideline. Jack and Jackie got a good laugh hearing that story from my brother in the stands at a 21st century Roughnecks’ game.
I apologized once to Jackie Hays for my brother bringing up those memories from his high school days. Jackie told me no apology was necessary. He said his Daddy loved to talk about his coaching days, almost as much as he loved to reminisce about his own playing days. Jackie Hays graduated from Columbia High School in 1971, one year before his sister Jenna Hays and my brother Cody Gupton graduated together with Columbia High School’s Class of 1972. Jenna was head cheerleader in high school and went on to attend the University of Texas where her brother Jackie played baseball for the Longhorns. Jenna is now married to former Texas Longhorns’ quarterback Randy McEachern. It goes without saying that Jack and Ellen Hays were extremely proud of their children and what they achieved, both as teenagers and in adulthood.
The newspaper obituary for Coach Hays goes on to say, “Jack initially pursued a business career with Firestone” after playing quarterback for North Texas State University, “but the call of coaching was too strong. He secured his first coaching job at Grapevine, then quickly moved to the new South Oak Cliff High School. Jack was eager and ambitious, and he soon became the head football coach and athletics director at El Campo in 1962. He quickly turned that program around, regularly beating arch rivals Bay City and Wharton, winning numerous district championships, and taking his 1967 Ricebirds to the state finals. He also started the school’s golf program and led them to regionals.”
Carman Bonner was the Roughnecks head football coach before the Jack Hays era began in West Columbia. The 1968 season proved to be Coach Bonner’s last at Columbia High School. The Roughnecks were district champions in 1968 and lost a hard fought bi-district battle against Alvin High School at Hopper Stadium in Freeport. Coach Bonner accepted the head coaching job at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin and CBISD Superintendent Kenneth Welsch hired Jack Hays to fill the void at Columbia High. “In 1969, Jack took his talents to West Columbia, where he became the most successful coach in school history,” his obituary states. “In an exchange that exemplified Jack’s confidence and quick wit, his predecessor (Bonner) warned him, “Jack, they’re not going to settle for 9-1,” to which he replied, “I don’t plan on going 9-1!”
And he didn’t. The 1969 football season proved to be the most successful in Columbia High School history. Two years after leading the El Campo Ricebirds to the state championship game, Coach Jack Hays did the same for the Roughnecks. Unfortunately, in 1967 and again in 1969, Jack Hays took his football teams into a state championship matchup with another legendary Texas high school football coach, the late Gordon Wood. Wood’s Brownwood Lions defeated the ’69 Roughnecks 34-16 at the Baylor Bears stadium in Waco. El Campo had also lost to Brownwood in the 1967 state championship game.
“True to form, he led his initial Columbia squad to the state finals and followed that team with more district championships and playoff appearances,” his obituary states. “His career record of 130 wins, 60 losses, and five ties reflect his innovation and work ethic, but more important than wins and losses, Jack invested himself in the development and growth of his coaches, his players, and in athletes across all programs under his direction. He was as proud of those who applied his lessons as successful employees, business owners, and family men as he was of his proteges who had playing success in college and the NFL.”
Two of the best players on the Roughnecks’ 1968 and 1969 district championship teams–the two Charlies–both went on to very successful college and pro careers after leaving Columbia High School. Charlie Johnson was the MVP of the 1969 football team that advanced to Columbia High School’s only state championship appearance. And running back Charlie Davis was first team All State, All District and All County his senior season as a Roughneck. Both Davis and Johnson played college football in Colorado and Charlie Davis was a second round draft choice of the Cincinnati Bengals after great success running the football for the Buffaloes in college.
A month or so before Coach Hays passed away in late April of this year, several of his former players from those glory years of the late 1960s and early 1970s gathered at the assisted living facility in Austin where Jack and Ellen Hays lived out their final years. The reunion was captured in a photograph that is shared here. Don Bogy, who was a member of that 1969 Roughnecks football team, celebrated his 74th birthday earlier this week. He commented at Wednesday’s West Columbia Rotary Club meeting that Jack Hays played a very important role in his life. Don told me, a fellow Rotarian, that he was going to quit football in high school, but Jack Hays talked him out of it. He said the interest and compassion Coach Hays showed him as a teenager in high school kept Don Bogy from missing out on being a part of that very special 1969 football team.
“Jack’s gridiron excellence was recognized by his peers: he was named Head Coach and led his South squad to victory in the 1972 Texas High School Coaches Association all-star game,” his obituary says. “His leadership and integrity were recognized in his election to the Association’s board of directors, and he was their President 1975-76. He is also a member of the THSCA Hall of Honor and the Greater Houston Area Coaches Hall of Fame. Columbia High School honored him by naming their athletic field house after him, and he is a Columbia High School Athletics Hall of Honor inductee.”
“A lifelong Rotarian, Jack served as West Columbia chapter President and was the undisputed world champion ticket salesman and dedicated auction supporter in their annual Shrimp Boil,” his obituary mentioned. “Jack didn’t limit his influence to the gridiron; he was a dedicated civics teacher, taught Sunday School in El Campo, served as a board member of the Columbia United Methodist Church, and was an important member of the team that founded what is now Coastal Conservation Association.”
I was one of the lucky ones who attended classes at Columbia High School all four years while Jack Hays was athletics director and head football coach. He was replaced in 1980 by Ed Derrich, who had played football for Coach Hays in El Campo and coached on Jack Hays’ staff prior to assuming the Roughnecks head coaching job. I attended Ed Derrich’s funeral last year at the Catholic church in West Columbia. He and Jack Hays were both among my teachers at Columbia High between 1971 and 1975. I will forever miss these two great men, as well as Coach Hays’ wife Ellen. The coaches from my high school days–Jack Hays, Ed Derrich, Charlie Brand, Charles Forehand, Jim Batson, Wayne Hay, James Ray Couser, Glynn Schmidt and others–instilled so many values in me and my many classmates that will, like Don Bogy said about Jack Hays, last a lifetime.
“There’s an old football adage that at some point, players have to ‘overcome their coaching.’ Those of us who knew and loved Jack Hays were usually striving to equal his coaching, and that’s the measure of the man,” so says a quote from the former coaching great’s newspaper obituary, which was most likely penned by his children and grandchildren.
Jack is survived by “his three grateful and loving children: Jack Hays (Andrea), Jenna McEachern (Randy), and Jeff Hays (Gina); eight grandchildren; and eleven great-grandchildren.” He was preceded in death by his parents, Marvin R. and Vada Grace (Elrod) Hays, and his beloved wife of 73 years, Ellen Mae (Sikora) Hays.
The Hays family will receive visitors on Saturday, May 16, 2026, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Triska Funeral Home, 612 Merchant Street, in El Campo. The former Roughnecks coach’s memorial service will be on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at 1 p.m. at Columbia Methodist Church, 315 South 16th Street, in West Columbia.
Memorial donations may be made to the Jack and Ellen Hays Scholarship Fund, 3100 Kramer Lane, #217, Austin, Texas, 78758.
Rest easy Coach Hays. You will definitely be missed.
