CLARION, Pa. (EYT/D9) — When Larry Wiser was a kid growing up in Port Matilda, a small town in the heart of Centre County, Pa., he and his younger brother, Steve, competed against each other in, well, just about everything.
And like brothers are want to do, sometimes things got heated.
“Our neighbor actually bought us boxing gloves one year for Christmas,” Larry Wiser said, laughing.
(Pictured above, Larry Wiser on the sideline as the coach of Central Clarion in the first season of the merger with Clarion-Limestone in 2020/photo by Bri Kirkland)
It was a sporting family.
As the brothers got older, they pushed each other in other ways.
Steve was a PIAA runner-up at 138 pounds in wrestling in his sophomore year in 1974 at Bald Eagle. Larry also wrestled there.
That sport laid the groundwork for Larry Wiser’s long football coaching career.
Clarion Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.
“I was actually trying to play basketball in the seventh grade,” Wiser said. “My dad was a very successful basketball coach and he coached football and baseball our whole life. Joe Humphrey, who is legendary fly fisherman, he was a great wrestling coach and got me started. He got ahold of me and said, ‘You’re going to wrestle.’ That was a big pathway to football.”
Larry Wiser learned patience and discipline on the wrestling mat. On the football field at Bald Eagle under another legendary coach, Al Wilson, Wiser learned what was at the time a cutting-edge way to coach the sport.
Wilson didn’t beat his kids into the ground. They practiced some days in just helmets and pads. Wiser learned some other tricks of the trade from Wilson that he used throughout his three decades of coaching football at Clarion Area and his one season at Central Clarion after the merging with Clarion-Limestone before he retired after the 2020 season.
“I just fell in love with both sports,” Wiser said. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I left to go to college.”
At Clarion State College (then Clarion University and now PennWest Clarion), Wiser wrestled. But football was always in his blood.
In 1988, he got his first crack at coaching high school football at Clarion and launched a legendary career of his own.
In two stints at Clarion, and one year at Central Clarion, Wiser won 238 games, losing just 103 and tying once.
Earlier this year, the renovated field at Clarion Area High School was named after Wiser — “Larry Wiser Field.”
On Sunday, Wiser got another honor dating back to when and where it all started for him.
(Larry Wiser and his wife, Annie, at the Centre County Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday/photo by Joe Wolf)
Wiser joined his brother Steve as an inductee into the Centre County Sports Hall of Fame.
“You never expect to happen what has happened to me this year,” Wiser said. “This whole year has been something else.
“A lot of people have helped me get to this point,” he added. “My high school experience was just so positive and I had two great, great coaches in high school. It just set the tone for me.”
Wiser is now the athletic director at North Clarion High School.
“The best way I can describe it is there’s always something on the table to do. It’s mentally stimulating,” Wiser said. “It’s great to see kids become a part of sports. That’s fun. Whatever I can do to get more kids out to do whatever, I don’t care what it is, I’d love to see them play something. I’ve always thought that sports really teaches lessons of life. I think of all the lessons I learned, being an athlete or a coach, helped me learn how to deal with things in every day life.”
Wiser remembers sports impacting his life at an early age.
As he looks back, accolades from a long and successful career pouring in, he is sometimes overwhelmed by how fortunate he has been to be surrounded by so many people who have helped him on that long and fruitful journey.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the people in high school and the people at Clarion — man, there are a lot of people — that helped me along the way,” Wiser. “I hope people understand I didn’t get here because of me, but because of them — athletes, administrators, school board members, people in this community that have supported our program over the years. Those are the people I want to thank.”
Clarion Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.
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