After 10 seasons of leading the Boerne Champion football team, Keith Kaiser is stepping away from the position.
Kaiser also serves as the school’s athletic coordinator and will fulfill his contract until the end of June 2023, but will no longer serve as the head football coach after Friday’s game against MacArthur.
A few days have passed since he made the announcement to the team on Tuesday and Kaiser said it’s the right time to leave the job.
“I think it’ll hit me later, but I’m at peace with it,” he said. “When I was at Marshall and told the kids I was leaving, I was an emotional wreck. It was hard to leave them for another job but when I talked to the kids this week, I didn’t blink.”
Kaiser has been a coach for 26 years, 13 seasons as a head coach. He started at Robert E. Lee in 1997, moved to Alamo Heights for a year in 2000 and then worked at Marshall starting in 2001 and stayed there for more than a decade, the last three years as the Rams head coach before coming to Champion before the 2013 season.
Kaiser went 9-22 at Marshall and has amassed a record of 82-35 at Champion heading into Friday’s game with Mac, Kaiser’s high school alma mater.
Ironically, Kaiser didn’t qualify for the playoffs in his first year at Champion, 2013, and in his last season, 2022. But in between, the Chargers went on an impressive run, making the playoffs eight straight seasons.
They earned 12 playoff wins during that time and during his tenure, Kaiser has averaged over eight wins per season, while winning two district championships in 2014 and 2016 (tri-champs) and advancing to the state semifinals (2019), regional semifinals (2015), and area finals (2014, 2020, 2021).
Kaiser’s Champion teams have won 10 or more games in three seasons (11 wins in 2014, 10 wins in 2016, and 13 wins in 2019.
The 13 victories in ’19 is the most in Boerne ISD history and the ’14 team is the only team in Boerne ISD history to finish the regular season with a perfect 10-0 record, although this year’s BHS team can match that with a win Friday over Fredericksburg.
Kaiser said two of his best memories are of the ’14 team going 10-0 through the regular season before winning a playoff game to make it 11-0 and also of the ’19 team playing in the state semifinals at Kyle Field in College Station.
During their eight playoff runs, the Chargers made it past the first round in seven of those seasons.
Kaiser said this year’s struggles and not making the playoffs had nothing to do with him leaving.
“I talked with (Athletic Director) Stan (Leech) about this decision,” Kaiser said. “We had these conversations in the summer, and I told him that this was probably going to be it.”
Kaiser said part of the decision to step away is to spend more time with his family. His daughter Kendall is graduating from Texas A&M in the spring and is currently earning her teaching certificate and Kaiser said he wants to help her with her transition into the education field.
His son, Karson, is currently playing football in college and dad said he wants to go watch his son play.
Kaiser said there are a lot of people to thank for his success but singled out his wife Kristi as the most deserving.
“The only football games she missed was when my daughter was playing volleyball, but other than that, she’s been at every football game for the last 26 years,” he said. “With the longevity and success I’ve had, she was a major part of that. I found a wife that embraced what I love and she raised the kids while I did this. I got lucky.”
Bryan Benway contributed to this report.
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