When the high school football season begins in August, Bud Wright will be back on the sidelines.
Wright, 85, was approved as the new coach at Southwood at the school board meeting on Tuesday night. The longtime Sheridan coach, the state’s all-time leader with 464 victories, coached at Sheridan from 1966 to 2024, leading the program to nine state championships.
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He resigned at Sheridan after the 2024 season, then coached last year as an assistant at North Miami, where one of his former assistants at Sheridan, Joe Grant, is the coach.
“I just had that itch,” Wright said of getting back into a head coaching position. “(Southwood) has some tradition. They’ve had some good football teams. I looked it over and decided to make the jump.”
Wright will be the fourth coach in four years for Southwood, which finished 3-7 last season. Wright talked to former Southwood coaches Terry Siddall and Dave Snyder about the position. Siddall led Southwood to the Class A state championship in 2002 and Snider coached the program from 2011-23, winning three sectional titles and posting eight consecutive winning seasons.
Wright has already been up to a couple of basketball games at Southwood, which is 11-1 and ranked No. 6 in the state.
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“They have some really good younger athletes in the junior, sophomore and freshman classes,” Wright said. “We beat them (at North Miami) in the second round of the sectional and they weren’t really good, but their kids fought hard. We were up on them pretty good but they never quit. I was impressed with them.”
There were opportunities for Wright to join a staff as an assistant coach. That was what his wife, Ellen, preferred, at least at first. “She said if I took a job around here, she’d go to all of my games,” he said. “She said Southwood was too far. But once they offered me the job, she backed off.”
Wright said it takes him 66 minutes to get to Southwood from his house in Sheridan. “It was 62 minutes to North Miami,” he said. Wright said he has a camper he can take to the nearby Mississinewa Reservoir campground nearby if necessary.
“I can take the camper up there and park it a night or two if I’m tired,” he said. “Make an adventure out of it.”
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How much longer will he coach? At this point, Wright has no idea. His doctor told him at his visit in December that he was in better health than he was three years ago.
“Right now I have four assistants lined up,” Wright said. “Brian Milligan was my (defensive backs) coach my last 36 years at Sheridan. He’s going to help. I’m excited about it. The opportunity came and I jumped on it.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649. Get IndyStar’s high school coverage sent directly to your inbox with the High School Sports newsletter. And be sure to subscribe to our new IndyStarTV: Preps YouTube channel.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bud Wright hired as high school football coach at Southwood
