HAMSHIRE, Texas — A prestigious award has named it's finalist and Hamshire-Fannett's Assistant Coach Blake Waggoner has been listed.
The Broyles Award is given to the top assistant coach in football.
The award began at the collegiate level with the recognition coming from legendary former Head Coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks, Frank Broyles.
Broyles won 144 games and lost only 58 in his 19 seasons with the Pigs.
Part of why this award was created, though, is from the love and appreciation Broyles had for his assistants.
In an interview with 12News, Blake Waggoner said, "It's an incredible honor, I was really happy we were able to shed light on our entire program's success through me."
With being named as a finalist for an award like this, expectations can grow even higher headed into the 2024 season.
"We expect to win every single game. We hope to ride that all the way to Arlington, the State Championship. For us, that's the ultimate goal," said Waggoner.
Clayton Harrell, a Beaumont native and the Executive Director of the High School Broyles Award, was present in Hamshire to provide the finalist plaque to Coach Waggoner.
"The award is given to the top assistant coach in college football. He [Broyle] chose a high school coach [on the trophy itself], so it's natural that the award go to the high school level," Harrell said about including high school into the trophy ceremonies.
"We've been at the high school level for five years, Texas being one of the first states. We started with three [states], we're at 38 now," Harrell said speaking about trying to grow the awareness of the award.
For this year's trophy in Texas, the committee decided to recognize eight finalist instead of just the one winner.
To put weight to how amazing being named a finalist is, within Texas there are approximately 20,000 different coaches that can be named to the award in just this state alone!
Congratulations to Hamshire-Fannett and Coach Blake Waggoner on this achievement, and good luck in 2024.