John Wade, a former football standout at Harrisonburg High and in college at Marshall, figures any Shenandoah Valley high school program would welcome a volunteer assistant.
“If you are a volunteer, I don’t think they are going to turn you down if you have some football experience,” he said.
And Wade certainly qualifies on that regard – he played in the NFL from 1998 to 2008 as a center for Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and Oakland.
The CEO at Bob Wade Autoworld on South Main Street in Harrisonburg, Wade is in his third season as a volunteer assistant coach for the varsity football program at Spotswood in Penn Laird. His son, Ryland, is a senior offensive guard for the Trailblazers.
“When my son decided to play (junior varsity in 2023), I felt I could make the time,” said Wade, 50, sitting in his office on a recent weekday morning. “I had never coached before. Just because you play doesn’t mean you are a good coach. I did not know what to expect. My first impression is the game is a lot slower (than college or the NFL). That was a little bit of an adjustment.”
“It is a good group of kids, and they work hard and listen to what fundamentals I am trying to get them to do,” Wade said of his Spotswood linemen. “I see them working on their craft, working on their game. The offensive line is not a natural position. People in daily life don’t walk around in that position. It is something that has to be trained constantly. That is the way it was taught to me over the years.”
Wade was a standout at Harrisonburg High, but did not attract a ton of attention from college coaches, though the chance to walk-on at JMU, Virginia and Virginia Tech was there for him.
He decided to accept a scholarship from Marshall in West Virginia – a school that won the Division I-AA national title in 1993 when Wade was in high school. The former football and baseball player for the Blue Streaks was part of a national title team at Marshall in 1996.
“I am not a genius, but if someone is going to pay for your school … they had a brand-new stadium, and they had just won the national title,” Wade said of Marshall. “I did not have a laundry list of letters” from colleges.
He was drafted in the fifth round by Jacksonville in 1998 and appeared in 131 NFL games, with 110 starts through the 2008 season.
Now he is working with another generation of players.
“I just wanted to learn the system” at Spotswood, he said. “I did not come in with grand ideas. It was a long time since I was in the classroom doing Xs and Os. The more I do, the more (football strategy) comes back to me. I like the coaches; I like the kids. Everyone there is great. They are good about coming right in after school. Our numbers are not large, but it is a nice group. They like the sport. They seem to want to play for one another. I don’t see a lot of ‘I’ talk,” with more of a team focus.
Running a company that his late father started, Wade has found time to attend practice and games at Spotswood.
“The car business is not a short hour business,” he said. “This is a short window in life” to help coach his son.
Wade played at Harrisonburg under former head coach Tim Sarver. His offensive line coach was Jack Hale, who also coached the baseball team at Harrisonburg.
Wade’s daughter, Raygan, is a sophomore on the volleyball team at Division III Roanoke. His son also plays tennis and is involved in theater at Spotswood. Rylan Wade is undecided about trying to play football in college.
“We will see what opportunities present themselves,” Wade said of his son, who is about 6-4 and 240 pounds. “He is about the size that I was in high school. Back when I played, teams took you to develop you. Now you have to come in and play right now, especially at the higher-level schools. My wife, Natalie, and I will support him in whatever he wants to do.”
The elder Wade watches NFL games on TV when time allows, usually the Sunday night game. He grew up following the Washington franchise and recalls the glory years of the 1980s and 1990s under former coach Joe Gibbs.
“I enjoy watching the games. I do love the game of football,” he said. “I am a lifelong Redskins/Commanders fan. It was nice to see last year; they had a great year. The quarterback (Jayden Daniels) seems like a tremendous person. There is a good culture there. It is pretty amazing how they changed the culture so quickly. Hats off to ownership. I was happy to see that.”
Notes
- Other Harrisonburg High grads to play in the NFL, according to com, are Howard Stevens, who played in college at Randolph-Macon and Louisville and in the pros for New Orleans and Baltimore from 1973-1977 as a running back and kick returner; Akeem Jordan, a JMU product who was a linebacker for Philadelphia, Kansas City and Washington from 2007-2014; and Landon Turner, who played in college at North Carolina and was with New Orleans as an offensive guard in 2016.
- The head coach at Spotswood is Danny Grogg.
- The movie “We Are Marshall” was released in 2006 and tells the story of the 1970 plane crash that killed 37 football players, several coaches and 75 people in total. “I think the movie was tastefully done, for a tragedy. From a Hollywood perspective, you could not have done it any better,” Wade said. The crash “was talked about a lot. I was there for a spring game, and they were finishing up the filming. I spoke to family that had people on the plane. They did a nice job with it.”
- Wade went into the Marshall Hall of Fame in 2010. Former JMU head coach Mickey Matthews was the defensive coordinator at Marshall from 1990-1995. He went into the JMU Hall of Fame last year.
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David Driver
