Published: September 26, 2007 11:50 pm      

Former area coach arrested twice over weekend

By Tim Woods

Waco Tribune-Herald



Chilton High School assistant football coach Lucky Gamble remained in the Falls County Jail on Monday after two weekend arrests.

Gamble, who coaches the offensive and defensive lines, was charged Friday with aggravated assault causing bodily injury-family violence, according to a Falls County Jail spokeswoman.

Gamble, at one time, was the athletics director and head football coach at Deweyville and Little Cypress-Mauriceville high schools. Gamble posted a 17-5 mark at Deweyville from 1980-81 and was 9-10-1 at LC-M from 1989-90.

Gamble was released after posting a $2,500 bond, the spokeswoman said, but then was arrested Saturday evening on charges of driving while intoxicated and unlawfully carrying a weapon.

The jail spokeswoman said Gamble was being held in lieu of $6,000 bond on the latter charges.

A Falls County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher said Marlin police made the Saturday arrest.

Gamble’s status with the football team was unclear Monday.

Head football coach Robert Little, who also is the school’s athletics director, said “all I know is what you know, that he was arrested twice,” when contacted at practice Monday afternoon.

Little said Gamble was being paid hourly and had no teaching commitments at the high school.

Asked whether Gamble would be suspended or fired because of the charges, Little said, “I’d rather not comment. That’s what I’ve been told to do.”

Little added he had not talked to Gamble since his arrests.

This is not the first time Gamble, who compiled a 59-10 record as Chilton High School’s head football coach from 2001-05, has been on the wrong side of the law.

In 2004, Gamble was convicted of assaulting his wife, stemming from a 2003 incident. Gamble was accused of shoving his wife into a bathtub and choking her with both hands, according to records filed in the case. Marcee Duvall, an attorney representing Gamble in that case, said at the time the altercation occurred after his wife hit him over the head with a picture frame while he slept. Gamble pleaded no contest to the Class A misdemeanor assault charge and received 18 months deferred probation.

It is unclear if Friday’s arrest involved the same woman.

Chilton Independent School District superintendent Benny Bobo said after the 2004 sentencing that the district did not penalize Gamble.

The jail spokeswoman did not know further details about Gamble’s latest legal entanglement.