SAN ANTONIO – The Texas High School Coaches Association held its 92nd Annual Convention & Coaching School in San Antonio this week at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in downtown San Antonio.
More than 17,000 coaches from around the state attended, including coaches from Boerne ISD and Geneva School of Boerne.
Boerne ISD Athletic Director Stan Leech was on a panel discussion Monday about “classification issues” and it primarily focused on an athletic director’s administrative duties within the district and how they go about those duties.
The discussion was moderated by Cy-Fair ISD Athletic Director Virginia Flores, and included Leech, along with Sweetwater ISD Athletic Director Russell Lucas and Houston ISD Athletic Director Andre Walker.
Boerne ISD is bigger than Sweetwater ISD, but smaller than Houston ISD, so each district functions differently.
Leech has Terry Gault as his assistant AD to help cover two high schools and three middle schools, while Lucas has seven assistant ADs to assist in covering their 20+ schools in Houston.
Every district handles administrative duties in different ways and it’s basically up to the district to determine the best way to divvy up those responsibilities based on personnel strength.
One of the issues discussed by the panel is how teams within the district set up playoff games once the postseason starts.
Flores mentioned that some of her teams in the Cy-Fair school district are in one region, while others are in a totally different region, which presents a different set of challenges.
Leech noted that Gault handles most of the playoff arrangements for the Boerne ISD teams.
Other issues discussed by the panel were hiring and personnel decisions, advice given to new coaches moving to the district and how each sport raises money for equipment and supplies.
Leech noted that there are no sports supply budgets in Boerne, so the athletic department has to raise most of their own money, except for stipends, travel and game management.
Leech said most of the money for the athletic department comes through booster clubs, concession sales and sponsors/ donations.
Flores also posed the question to each AD, “What does your district do well?”
As far as what Boerne ISD does well, Leech mentioned raising money for the athletic department and also remembering the past through the Boerne ISD Athletic Hall of Honor and through the distinguished alumni association.
The recent decision by the UIL to include two state championships in every classification was brought up and all were in favor of it, especially Leech.
“I’m excited, we’ve been wanting this a long time,” he said. “It’s not perfect but it’s a positive step in the right direction.”
The new playoff system will basically eliminate regional tournaments but they can still be held if the region wants to have them. Leech was fine with eliminating them because of practicality.
“If it’s something you have to have, well you can still have it. I know other regions have different stories about how wonderful regional tournaments are and they can still have them,” he said. “For the last six years we’ve been going down to (Kingsville) to play Fredericksburg and they are 30 miles away from us. When we play them in district we have about 1,100 and 1,200 (in attendance) and we drive down to (Kingsville) we have about 100.”
Also, the last two years the BHS girls soccer team has played district foe Davenport in Corpus Christi for the regional title and has drawn well, but to Leech’s point, if the games had been held in the San Antonio area, they would have brought in even bigger crowds.
Leech was asked about the fact that Boerne and Champion will face each other for the first time in most sports beginning in the fall since they are both 5A schools and in the same district, except for football. Leech said he and the community were ready for it.”
“I’m not worried about the kids, the kids will be fine,” he said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
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