“I love what (head coach) David (Shores) is doing here,” Del Hufford said. “As athletic director, he’s bringing all the sports programs together. He’s got everybody to buy into Pell City sports in general.” Hufford is in his second year as the Panthers’ offensive line and varsity wrestling coach.

Del Hufford always loved sports but didn’t know for a while that he wanted to make coaching his career.

“When I went to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do at first,” he said.  “Eventually I decided that I wanted to give back what the game (of football) gave to me.  You have to have a love for the sport, as most coaches do, and you want to give back to it and instill in someone else what the game instilled in you.”

Now in his second year as offensive line and varsity wrestling coach for the Pell City Panthers, the Pennsylvania native took his first job after college at Moody High School, where he stayed for five years and started the Blue Devils’ wrestling program, and spent two years each at Hoover, Foley and Oak Mountain.

Sitting in the coaches’ office at the Panthers’ field house on a recent Monday morning, Hufford explained more about what motivates him to coach, the correlation between football and wrestling, and why coaching is a challenging profession.

Coaching’s greatest challenge:  “Getting through to the kids.  There’s a lot to the saying that kids want to know you care before they care how much you know.  Coaches keep their jobs based on whether they win or lose games, but what we do is really about the kids.  And bottom line, kids want to have fun.  They also want to win, and so do we, but we also want them to have a good experience, learn lessons, and have fun.”

Starting Moody’s wrestling program:  “The first thing we had to do was buy a mat.  We got a reconditioned mat from Pennsylvania that cost $2,500, which the football boosters were kind enough to pay for.  That got us started.  Then we had to get everybody interested and do a ton of fundraising.”

Was the interest there?  “We had a lot of interest from football players who didn’t know what it was.  All they knew about wrestling was professional wrestling.  We were so small at Moody that we found the wrestling program was leveling the playing field for our kids.  It brought a lot of kids out of their shells and made them better football players.  I would like to see every football player who isn’t playing basketball wrestle.”

Why?  “It teaches accountability.  In wrestling, there’s no one else to blame.  When there are 11 men on the football field and one guy doesn’t do his job, it may not be so noticeable.  But on the mat, there’s nobody else to look at.  It makes them accountable in all sports and in all aspects of life.”

At Pell City:  “Last year, we had five football players on the wrestling team.  This year, I have 25 football players.  Only five guys just wrestle.  We’re a school that has to share athletes for us to have a successful athletic program, so that’s good for our school.”

Hufford’s athletic background:  He was a three-sport athlete at Harry S. Truman High School in Levittown, Pa., playing football, wrestling and throwing shot put, discus and javelin.  An All-State offensive guard, he earned a spot on Kutztown University’s offensive line, playing for head coach Raymond Monica, who had previously coached nine seasons at the University of North Alabama.

The best part of coaching:  “Watching the kids grow up.  With me, it doesn’t end when they graduate.  It’s really nice to see kids when they come back from college, get an invitation to their wedding, or have dinner with them when they’re back in town.  The relationships we had with our coaches and their influence on us is what took us to this business.  Someone gave us that love.”

One of his major influences:  “Hank Johns, one of my high school coaches.”  Johns later moved on to NCAA Division III powerhouse Trinity State College (now the College of New Jersey) and died while Hufford was at Kutztown.  “He was that man for me.  He always told me, ‘Surround yourself with positive people.’”

His favorite college team:  “When I moved here, I was told early on that I’d have to choose.  I respect the tradition at Alabama, so I’m a Bama guy.  But I still pull for Penn State.”

His thoughts on the charges brought against the college and former assistant coach Jerry Sanduski:  “It’s tragic.  (Head coach Joe) Paterno was Bear Bryant in Pennsylvania.  I’m just hoping the athletic program can bounce back, because what happened was nothing these kids did.  I stay out of the controversy and try to remember that some good things also happened.”