Glendale assistant Ben Mauck was among the applicants for Ozark’s coaching vacancy earlier this year, before the Tigers ultimately landed Jeremy Cordell out of Chicago.
But Ozark does have a connection to Glendale and its pass-happy offense in former Falcon Fisher Wade, who is among the quarterbacks competing to win the Tigers’ starting signal-calling job.
Wade attended Ozark in junior high, before transferring to Glendale at the start of his freshman year. He transferred back to Ozark at the start of the second semester last school year and is now a senior.
Wade enjoyed playing for Glendale, as most any quarterback likely would, given the Falcons’ penchant to pass up to 70-80 times a game.
“There are some great coaches there and I still train with them to this day,” he said. “We passed every play and it was really fun."
Wade is having to get accustomed to getting in position to hand the ball off to a running back.
“It's all new for me here, it’s a new offense,” he said. “I’m still trying to learn about the running game because we didn't do any of that (at Glendale). It's been a lot.”
Wade also has attended school at Bolivar and Florida, thus he’s been in the position before of having to get to know nuances at each school, as well as new faces around him.
“You've got to learn to adapt,” he said.
