About Coach Webber

Paul A Webber, 1944 – 1998

2009 Missouri Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame
2008 Missouri Wrestling Association Hall of Fame
1999 Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame

Former Students told many stories about how Paul’s influence had altered the course of their life. He’d clearly built a legacy worthy of keeping alive. Many pondered how to spotlight the best of what he gave to his students, schools and communities.

The Story of Paul Webber, Jr.:
In Brief

Paul was born November 19, 1944 in Poplar Bluff, MO. He grew up on a farm in rural Butler County. His family worked hard to make ends meet; there were few extras. Qulin Schools didn’t have a football team and college education was rarely within view for youngsters in the area, at that time.

As a youngster, Paul dreamed of the day he’d play football for Poplar Bluff High School — a big school in a nearby city. He announced this dream to anyone who would listen. The odds against him seemed insurmountable, yet he made it happen.

He contributed to that team during four years of high school and earned a full athletic scholarship to Missouri State at Cape Girardeau. Even so, money was so scarce that he worked part time and traded or sold cherished treasures from his boyhood to pay for food when the college cafeteria was closed.

Paul was watched by professional football scouts during college and courted by them near the end of his college career. Most certainly he was tempted to accept their offers for engagement. He walked away from chances for a professional football career and toward teaching and coaching high school students.

His teaching career spanned more than 20 years and multiple generations of Jackson High students before he returned to his beloved Poplar Bluff High School. His assignment: turn around their football team’s long losing streak. The speed of the turn was warp with an undefeated season his second year.

A heart attack on October 11, 1998 took his life. People stood in line for more than three hours to pay their respects. The man from the cotton fields of S.E. Missouri had left lasting impressions on the hearts and minds of thousands of students.

It is Paul’s spirit of achievement against the odds – accomplished with high integrity that guides selection of scholarship recipients by committee members.

Articles:

State coaches honor former Jackson coach Paul Webber

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
By Marty Mishow ~ Southeast Missourian

The former Jackson coach was inducted into the state’s Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame

The man who helped build the Jackson High School football program into a perennial power recently received a major honor, albeit posthumously.

Paul Webber, who died in 1998, was inducted into the Missouri Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Lake of the Ozarks earlier this month.

“It’s very deserving,” said former Jackson coach Carl Gross, who was an assistant on Webber’s staff for eight years before succeeding Webber as the Indians’ boss in 1989. “He was a great man and a great coach.”

Webber compiled a 130-71-2 record at Jackson from 1969 through 1988 and led the school to its first state playoff berth in 1972. The former Southeast Missouri State football player later continued his success at Poplar Bluff — his alma mater — and led the Mules to an undefeated regular season in 1990.

Nic Antoine, who wrote the book “The Jackson Indians: 100 Years of Gridiron Glory,” told the Southeast Missourian last year that Webber “was the most influential person in Jackson football history, without a doubt.” Read more of article in Southeast Missourian

Quotes:

Nic Antoine, who wrote the book “The Jackson Indians: 100 Years of Gridiron Glory,” told the Southeast Missourian last year [2008] that Webber “was the most influential person in Jackson football history, without a doubt.”