Inductees

In the late 1970s, George Bruto found himself at a crossroads.

Yes, he loved football. In fact, he had played on an NAIA national championship team and, after serving in the military, saw high school football as his future. Yet, after a couple of seasons as a head coach at a rural school, began kicking the tires on a career in construction.

Well, until a future Hall of Fame coach called.

“Randy Morrow (MSHOF 2011) wanted me to help him coach up at Adrian,” Bruto said, noting that Adrian High School had a need for a physical education teacher, plus a librarian opening for Bruto’s wife. He said, ‘Would you be interested?’ And 30 minutes later we called back.”

Bruto spent the next 36 years there, including 28 as head football coach (1986-2013), and his success is leading to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, which is proudly inducting Bruto with the Class of 2019.

His Adrian teams were 238-77 – a win total that was good for top 15 all-time among Missouri high school football coaches. His 2002 team won the Class 1 state championship, and his 1987 team was a state runner-up.

Under his watch, Adrian advanced to 10 state semifinals (1987, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005) and won 17 district titles as well as 13 conference championships. And before Morrow went on to lead Warsaw High School, Bruto’s nine seasons as his top assistant featured a pair of state semifinal berths, two district titles and a conference championship.

In other words, Bruto fit like a glove in the farming community that sits just off Highway 71 between Harrisonville and Nevada, with old-timers often sipping their morning coffee at the local Rudy’s 66 gas station and convenience store.

“The day after the season ends, they’re already talking about, ‘What are we going to do next year?'” Bruto said with a laugh. “They would already be trying to figure out next year’s lineup.”

Bruto graduated from Butler High School in 1965, playing running back and outside linebacker as a senior. He then served in the Navy and served 19 months in Vietnam, returned home and coached youth football with his dad.

That’s when the thought of coaching high schools came to mind. That’s also when he called Jim Frazier, the football coach at Missouri Southern State University. Bruto played four seasons, including as a back-up defensive end on its 1972 NAIA national championship team.

He then worked out a student-teaching gig with Adrian and Morrow. Back then, he lived in Nevada, so he would travel 60 miles to the MSSU campus in Joplin for school in the morning and then high-tail it Adrian — a 90-minute drive — to assist Morrow.

But after coaching full-time at a southwest Missouri school, Bruto considered changing course. Morrow, however, brought him back to Adrian.

“We were like brothers,” Bruto said.

What a run it became in Adrian. In his second season as head coach, the team played in the Class 1 state championship game, and more success followed.

At one point, he called then-Air Force Academy coach Fisher Deberry about the flexbone run attack, and it was the flexbone that catapulted the 2002 team to the state championship.

A regular-season loss to Lockwood was a wake-up call. In the playoffs, Adrian held off St. Mary’s, survived a back-and-forth against Santa Fe and stuffed Princeton’s unbalanced O-line with the “Wide Tackle 6,” a defense Bruto learned in his high school days.

Adrian then outlasted Hayti 35-22 in the championship game.

Additionally, Bruto wore other hats, as he coached the school’s girls and boys basketball and track teams at various times. Over 45 sports seasons, he was 430-177 as a varsity coach and 147-50 as a junior high school coach, covering 49 seasons.

In doing so, Bruto was able to coach the middle school football teams and install his offense there, although that meant 6 a.m. practices. Call it a great strategy, players ultimately reached the varsity level knowing expectations.

Along the way, he has had the support of his wife Patti and coached and coached with sons Shaun and Chad. Additionally, he credits longtime assistant Matt Cochran and all of his former assistants for helping him reach success.

“We’ve been blessed,” Bruto said of his family. “We’ve had a lot of fun, and we have to thank Randy for bringing us here. The town has been great to us. The kids were great. They didn’t give us any trouble. And we had great parents, too.”