When it came to winning high school state championships, every other coach in Texas is in the rear view mirror of Aledo’s Tim Buchanan.
Saturday, Buchanan - or Buc, as most who know him call him - will be recognized for his sterling career at the helm of the Aledo Bearcats when he is inducted into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame. He joins Odessa Permian’s John Wilkins in receiving the Eddie Joseph THSFHOF Award.
The event will take place at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco.
“This is the one I really wanted. This reflects a football career,” Buchanan said. “As a coach, to go in, it’s really humbling to know we did a good enough job to get me in.”
Few coaches at any level of the game of football knew how to win like Buchanan. He led the Bearcats to eight state championships in 24 seasons on the sidelines before retiring at the end of the 2022 season.
Eleven, if you count three won by the Bearcats under Steve Wood when Buchanan retired for a five-year span to serve as only athletic director.
In fact, no program in Texas history has as many state titles as the Bearcats. They reached a dozen in 2023 when Buchanan disciple Robby Jones guided them to a 16-0 record in his first season at the helm.
Jones, by the way, will also be recognized Saturday night, as will all football state championship coaches.
Buchanan attended Abilene Christian University on a football scholarship for one semester before transferring to Southwest Texas State University where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Education. He received his Masters from Texas A&M in College Station.
He began his coaching career as an assistant in Florence in 1983. He also coached as an assistant at Bastrop, The Colony, Killeen Ellison and A&M Consolidated.
During his tenure at A&M Consolidated, he was the defensive secondary coach on teams that went 58-13-1, including one state semifinals, two state finals and one 4A state championship.
Buchanan arrived in Aledo in 1993, the only place where he was a head coach, and his career record was 281-57-3. Buchanan became the full-time athletic director at Aledo from 2014-18 before returning to the sidelines in 2019 and winning state championships in three of four years after returning.
His other state championships leading the Bearcats came in 1998, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2103 when the Bearcats became the only team at any level to score more than 1,000 points in a season.
Success off the field
Off the field Buchanan has been active in the Texas High School Coaches Association, serving on the Football Advisory Committee from 2004-2007 and on the Board of Directors from 2010-2013. He was recently named one of the Top Ten Football Coaches in Texas by “Dave Campbell’s Texas Football” magazine, and he has received many Coach of the Year Awards statewide and in the district.
Buchanan joins his former player, national record-setting running back Jonathan Gray, who played at Aledo from 2008-11 and later for the University of Texas, in the hall. With Gray in the backfield, Buchanan coached the Bearcats to their first state championship three-peat from 2009-11.
“I look back, not just at Aledo, but how I became a head coach and happened to me here, and sometimes I still can’t believe it,” Buchanan said.
Others being honored
Joining Buchanan and Wilkins in being inducted Saturday and their respective categories are:
1969 & Before — Riley Odoms, Corpus Christi West Oso High School.
1980s — Brent Duhon, Port Arthur Jefferson High School.
1990s — Cory Redding, Houston North Shore High School.
2000s — Cedric Benson, Midland Lee High School.
Dave Campbell Contributor to the Game — Robert Lee Brown, Prairie View Interscholastic League Hall of Honor Chairman.
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