By Mike London

Salisbury Post

ALBEMARLE — Larry Wagner was known as “Bugs” Wagner growing up as an all-star football lineman in Spencer.

Wagner is 87 now. The call from the Stanly County Sports Hall of Fame took a while, but Wagner, who will be inducted this summer, was happy to answer the call when it finally came.

Wagner goes back, way back, so far back that he was a Spencer High Railroader. North Rowan High didn’t exist yet when Wagner was pancaking opponents. A 5-foot-11, 215-pound stallion as an 18-year-old, he played in the 1955 Shrine Bowl with a host of other locals on the 33-man North Carolina squad. Wagner teamed with state champion Boyden’s Ronnie Bostian and Tom Page, China Grove’s 250-pound bear Carl Drye, A.L. Brown’s blazing, 193-pound halfback Leroy Scercy and Albemarle fullback Wade Smith.

Most of those All-State standouts were reunited in the summer of 1956, after they graduated from high school, to play together in the East-West All-Star Game. Those two marquee all-star games — Wagner was on the winning side in both of them — are a part of Wagner’s claim to fame in Rowan County, as he was the only player in the history of the Railroaders to be invited to play in either event.

Spencer was a small school, but played big and would take on schools like Lexington, Asheboro and Statesville on the gridiron. Wagner was good enough to get noticed.

Spencer was considered a “Wake Forest town,” and Spencer athletes usually were steered to Wake Forest by the movers and shakers in town, but Clemson head football coach Frank Howard was determined to get Wagner and landed him. Wagner was a strong student and headed to Clemson not only to play football but to become a textile engineer, a major for which the S.C. school was considered one of the world’s finest.

Clemson was tough in the late 1950s and was winning plenty of football games. Wagner played guard on offense and nose guard on defense for ACC championship teams in 1958 and 1959.

Wagner was in the thick of the action in the 1959 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans when Clemson took on national champion LSU and Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon, a freak athlete for the day in that he was a 210-pound pit bull who could sprint 100 yards in 9.4 seconds.

“Hungry (Clemson) Tigers against fat (LSU) Tigers” is how Coach Howard hyped the matchup, but Cannon made the play that gave LSU a 7-0 victory over 12th-ranked Clemson, a 15-point underdog. After a bad snap on a punt late in the third quarter of a scoreless game, LSU got the ball on the Clemson 12. On third-and-8 from the 10, Clemson had Cannon bottled up on a toss sweep, but he surprised everyone by throwing a touchdown pass.

The biggest ACC games for Wagner were against the Carolinas — North and South.

He tackled Smith, his Shrine Bowl teammate, quite a few times. Smith had become a star back for the Tar Heels. Wagner had a huge sack against the Tar Heels when they squared off with Clemson on opening day of the 1959 season.

The South Carolina games were “Big Thursday” tussles played in Columbia in conjunction with the State Fair. The state would practically shut down for those physical match-ups.

Wagner made a change in his career path along the way. He left Clemson and finished college at Appalachian State because that’s where you went to become a teacher/coach. After he earned a master’s degree in Boone, he was ready to start his career.

His first teaching and coaching job was at Rohanen High in Rockingham. Marvin Miles, who had been Wagner’s basketball coach at Spencer, hired him. He stayed there two years.

East Rowan principal Derwood Huneycutt brought Wagner back to Rowan County. In May 1963, the Salisbury Post announced Wagner had been hired as a social studies teacher and as the line coach for the Mustangs football team. He would also coach the jayvee basketball squad.

Wagner became East’s head football coach for the 1965 and 1966 seasons. His teams were 6-4 and 6-3-1 and went 5-1 in the county games against North, South and West. He was the Post’s Coach of the Year both seasons.

After North beat South Rowan 19-14 in 1965, veteran South coach Lope Linder handed rookie head coach Wagner the game ball in the handshake line. It was a classy gesture that Wagner never forgot.

In 1967, Wagner left East for an assistant principal position at Northeast Guilford. W.A. Cline replaced Wagner at the helm of the Mustangs.

Wagner served as an AP at Northeast Guilford for four years, but he missed football. He arrived at West Stanly to teach and coach in 1971, and that’s where he found a lasting home. He taught social studies there for 32 years before retirement from the classroom, and he was part of the West Stanly football coaching staff for 40 consecutive seasons.

He was West Stanly’s Teacher of the Year in 1986.

In 2015, West Stanly named its football stadium after Wagner to honor his contributions to football and track and field, and the Colts still compete in Larry Wagner Stadium. Every year, the Colts’ top athlete receives the Larry Wagner Award.

Wagner  was married to the late Amelia Stockton Wagner. They raised two daughters — Karen McCray and Elizabeth Standafer.