We are a 4A school in Texas - you would think that football was king, right? This town is SO messed up. For years (when we first moved down here 15 years ago), this town had a championship-winning football team and everyone was pretty happy except the non-football crowd who claimed that football got all the funds, preferential treatment, the football players were druggies (more on that later), etc. The usual.
Enter a new super about 7 years ago - she told the head football coach that he was no longer the athletic director. I heard that she said she didn't want anyone in the district to have more power than she, but that is a small-town rumor, however her actions later turned out to make everyone believe it! Anyway, the coach left. We then had a series of 1 or 2 year stints of coaches with little say-so and the football program began a decline. To address the issue of drug use by athletes, band members, drama club actors, our district implemented mandatory drug testing (much needed - the admin had been burying their heads in the sand about this for years!) Well, of course, we lost half the football team. This confirmed what everyone had been saying about drug use, but this was FOUR YEARS AGO! I had a person comment to me the other day that the football team was full of drug addicts! I asked her how she thought that was possible when the team was practically cut in half by the drug testing. She said, oh well, it used to be that way. We ended up with the 6th longest losing streak in the state last year - our stands were half empty...the visitors side had more people on it than us for all the games except homecoming. I had people in town tell me that they wished they could see my kids play, but they drove to the town 10 miles away to watch THEIR team play on Friday nights so that they could see a team win. People even wore THAT school's colors around town instead of ours.
We had a staff of 12 coaches (most also coached other sports and taught content - area classes - they were strictly ASSISTANT coaches) 6 left or retired at the end of this year. Last week our new superintendent/school board reinstated the head football coach as athletic director. The girls basketball coach HAD been the athletic director (mostly in name only - remember our past super had "issues"). The kids started talking about how the head coach was getting phone calls and threats from a few of the girls' parents.
Monday night our head football coach had a heart attack. He resigned last night. The 35 boys on varsity (we had NO JV -not enough kids) started calling each other and have called a meeting at the field house tonight. I am so upset for these kids who went out every day for practice, stayed away from drugs, played their hearts out every Friday night against teams that outmanned them in size and number (3 of these teams moved up to 5A this year)...
We have 5 football coaches left - and NO head coach.
My sons feel hurt and deserted by the town, and now by the coaches.
Rant over.
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