An era is over at Sanford-Fritch High School, and actually has been for a few years now, but a new season made sure that old times will be forever remembered.
Prior to Friday night’s season opener against River Road at Eagle Stadium, the field was named after two coaches who reigned over the program for almost a quarter-century, Rick Ware and Houston Moos. The home field will from here on out be known as Ware-Moos Field.
The rechristening of the field was approved by the Sanford-Fritch ISD in June, following the end of the 2024-25 school year. It was appropriate that the renaming got approved then, as the man who introduced the idea, former S-FISD superintendent Jason Garrison, retired at the end of the last school year.
“It’s always something that I wanted to do for them,” Garrison said. “Several of our board members were all about doing it too because they were ex-players for Ware and Moos. I can’t take all the credit because they were definitely on board with doing it as well.”
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Ware was the head coach at Fritch from 1997-2014 and during his entire tenure Moos served as his defensive coordinator. When Ware retired, Moos was named head coach and led the program from 2015-20.
These days, Ware has left football behind, as he and his wife Leann are leading the RV life, spending most of their time on the road. He was in Utah for three months over the summer when he got the call from Garrison about the proposed renaming of the field involving him.
“I told Jason I thought you had to be dead to get that honor,” Ware said. “I was pretty surprised. I was surprised I even got service when he called because I was out in the middle of Utah.”
Ware won 97 games at the helm of the Eagles with Moos by his side. Garrison points out such loyalty and longevity at a small school like Sanford-Fritch as being extremely rare.
“Coach Ware was here 18 years and in that capacity that’s hard to do anywhere,” Garrison said. “They really exemplified integrity and character among players not only to be players but to be good people. You’re some place 18 years, you’re going to put your hands on a lot of people and touch a lot of lives, and they did. Coach Moos was his right-hand man for those 18 years and he led the program for six years after with the same mentality.”
Moos won 25 games at Fritch, but after retiring from coaching in 2020, unlike Ware he didn’t depart the education world. He’s now the district’s director of transportation and spends far more time worrying about replacing brake pads than diagramming game plans.
Connecting with young people and the community became more important for Moos than wins or losses, and he thinks that’s the big reason he’s sharing the new name of the field.
“It’s an honor, no doubt,” Moos said. “There’s enough people out there who think we impacted their lives to reward us in such a way.”
A lot of those people are still around Fritch. In fact, five S-FISD school board members played for Ware and Moos.
Renaming the field after them seemed like a no-brainer as far as Garrison was concerned.
“The ones I talked to are excited we’re doing it.” Garrison said. “They think it’s overdue and well-deserved. Several former players and people they coached with were coming in for it. They deserve everything.”
Ware had been the coach at Valley View, north of Denton when he accepted the job at Sanford-Fritch. He had previously been the head coach at Sabinal when he first came into contact with Moos, hiring him as an assistant for the first coaching job Moos had.
Moos became Ware’s sidekick and was by his side at each stop after that. Ware stayed in Fritch because he felt it was the best place for his family.
“We had young kids at the time so I was looking at a place where I could go and settle and put them through school,” Ware said. “When we got there the community was very, very accepting with their support. We had some really good athletes and a really good coaching staff and we started winning pretty quick. I liked the fact that our kids could grow there.”
Moos also felt the pull of the community as a reason for staying.
“The way they were accepting of our family and treated us right was big,” Moos said. “The kids and parents both believed that hard work pays dividends in the long run. We had a good administration and good coaches to work with. All the assistants contributed to this honor and it takes pretty good athletes to win.”
It was only natural that as long as they were together, Moos would be the one to step into Ware’s shoes once Ware retired. Moos had also been the head boys and girls track coach.
Ware thinks that having the field named after him and Moos both is appropriate and necessary.
“I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather share it with,” said Ware of Moos. “Without him I probably wouldn’t have stayed near as long. I think it’s tremendous that we can both be honored.”
Moos isn’t so sure that coaching ability is what got his name on the field. He was just glad to have the experience.
“It’s very humbling honestly,” Moos said. “I have to question whether I’m worthy of such a thing. There’s a lot of good coaches in this world. The fact you can make a difference in somebody’s life is pretty humbling.”