ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
A SPINAL DEFECT ENDED Stephen Magenbauer's playing career at Salem, but his love of football opened up a new career as a Glenvar assistant coach.
It has been nearly seven years since Stephen Magenbauer lay on a football field, temporarily paralyzed after taking a hit during a Virginia High School League playoff game against Dan River.
That November night, Magenbauer was on his way to becoming Timesland's Sizzlin' Sophomore of the Year as Salem High School's quarterback. He had a bright future that down the road likely would have included college football and even, as some dared to predict, a chance to play in the NFL.
Magenbauer's one love was football. Eventually, he walked away from that injury, but doctors determined he had suffered the temporary paralysis because of a congenital defect in his spine.
Magenbauer had been lucky once in shaking off a blow to his neck. If there was a next time, he might become a paraplegic or worse.
There would be no next time. Magenbauer and his mother, Liz, consulted with doctors up and down the East Coast and decided the gamble wasn't worth it.
The Magenbauers saw a doctor two or three times who had treated Chucky Mullins, a University of Mississippi player who suffered a broken neck that same fall and later died of complications from his injury.
``We asked him, `Is it safe for Stephen to play football? What are the risks?''' said Liz Magenbauer. ``His answer [like the other doctors] was that he should not play football. It was absolutely unsafe. Sooner or later something would happen. There wasn't a choice.''
Stephen Magenbauer may not have had a choice about a playing career, but he did have a choice about a football career.
Magenbauer, 22, is on the sideline again - this time at Glenvar High School. Tonight, he makes his official return as Timesland's youngest offensive coordinator when the Highlanders visit Craig County.
``I guess I'll be excited to get the season started,'' Magenbauer said with the same quiet confidence he showed as a player. ``Maybe a little nervous, but not overconfident.''
From mature QB to young coach
Magenbauer always was destined to be in football, one way or another. That was a given. After the neck injury ended his playing career, he became a fixture at Salem and was a volunteer assistant to Larry Bradley at Andrew Lewis Middle School while still in high school.
``We all knew he loved football so much that we wanted to get him to do something, so we got him helping at the middle school,'' said Willis White, Salem's head football coach. ``He'd come out when we were running quarterback drills and help us. He started scouting when he went to [Virginia] Tech. Stephen would do anything you'd ask. I never heard a word of complaint from him.''
It wasn't easy for Magenbauer.
``I don't think anyone can imagine,'' Liz Magenbauer said. ``Once you have a passion like that and have to give it up it's really hard wanting to do something you can't do.''
Magenbauer prepared for a career in coaching as Bradley's offensive coordinator while he was only a few years older than the middle school students he coached.
``I'd rather be a player than coach,'' Magenbauer said. ``The hardest thing as a coach is realizing you're just a coach and to put everything into a coach's state of mind.''
When he graduated from high school, Magenbauer went to Virginia Tech as a business major. He put aside football and had no plans to coach again.
As a junior, though, Magenbauer realized he missed the game too much to give it up for good. He had checked periodically with doctors about playing again, but they continued to give him the same answer. So it was back to the sideline.
`He's one of those rare birds'
``I came back [to football] after my junior year,'' Magenbauer said. ``I made up my mind to get back into it.''
White used him as a scout for Salem, and Magenbauer changed his major to business education so he could teach.
When Magenbauer graduated from Tech this past spring, it was a former Salem assistant, Brian Hooker, who gave him a chance to join his staff at Glenvar.
``I talked to Brian and told him I thought Stephen could really help him, but I'm not sure I talked to Brian until after he had already hired him,'' White said. ``Stephen has an intangible a lot of coaches don't have - that is a genuine love of the game. He's always studied the game, ever since he was a little kid. He wanted to know why things are done the way they are. That, plus [the fact that] he gets along with young people, will make him a coach.
``He's patient. He's one of those rare birds. I don't think he was ever a teen-ager. He went out of diapers into adulthood, even when he was playing.''
Al McClearn, Glenvar's principal, helped Magenbauer get a teaching job. Magenbauer works in Vinton and at Cave Spring, then drives 30 minutes to practice each afternoon. Nothing - and certainly not a short daily drive - could keep Magenbauer away from football.
``He's pretty much in charge of the offense, calling the plays, and working with quarterbacks and backs,'' said Hooker, who coached Magenbauer in seventh and eighth grades. ``He's been coaching for years. It's unbelievable.
``He's like family to me. He's very special. I shared some of his frustration. He was very talented and I knew how much he loved to play football.
A new beginning
Stephen Magenbauer still loves the game. He just shows his affection in a different way.
``My ultimate dream is to be a head coach, though it's not'' going to happen next year, Magenbauer said. ``There are a lot of things to deal with before that, like hard work. Coach Hooker has given me a chance, but all these [assistant] coaches have accepted me.''
Liz Magenbauer is thrilled about the new opportunity for her son.
``When he changed majors, that's when I knew he was going to coach,'' she said. ``That's what he told me he wanted to do, but I don't think he knew it until he got away from football.
``My concern was I didn't want him to teach just to coach. I wanted him to think long and hard about it. If he wanted to teach and coaching is a byproduct, fine.''
Still, there always will be a question for Stephen.
``I wonder what might have been,'' he said. ``My dream was to play in college, to see how well I could do. I never had the chance to be as good as I could. My dream now is to go as far as I can in coaching.''
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. At 22, Glenvar's Stephenby CNBMagenbauer will be Timesland football's youngest offensive
coordinator tonight.