Cougar14.2

I think BH is chasing the SLC, LT, HP, Westlake and to an extent Prosper models but the money there is just on a different level. Not to mention a place like SLC has former Dallas Cowboy kids playing for them on a regular basis to go along with the finances. BH's growth may hurt more than help in the near future with them being pushed to 6A probably even before Crosby. Deep Park has 4,000 kids, all the things you would need to be successful on the field and has had decent coaches but still can't seem to find their way. DP is almost a mirror image of BH in terms of demographics and is located in a not good, but great area for the purposes of talent acquisition but have still seemed to struggle to upgrade their personnel? I think they're going to have to do it the old fashioned way with hard work, good coaching and pretty much homegrown talent. BH would greatly benefit from some of the transfers in that NE quadrant of the beltway but for whatever reason they just don't come. *For reference, BH High is the closest district school to Crosby High by distance. However, Crosby High is closer to North Shore, CE King, Channelview, Atascocita, Summer Creek and all three Baytown high schools.

"Austin area" almost makes you feel it's Abseck for sure since based on the two previous coaching hires the other two possible candidates actually work IN the Austin city limits. Probably reading way too much into the wording though? I highly doubt they go with the curveball in this situation but Liberty Hill is also in the Austin area.

Is there a live stream for this one? Texan live is audio only it says.

If $175k really won't touch what he's currently making then he's probably not bringing way more into the program than he draws? With the way he's winning the community is definitely more apt to donate funds or approve bonds though. Carthage's stadium holds 6k so call it $50k per game average the district clears for a total of $250k for the five home games. Give them another $100k for merchandising and playoff games which totals $350k for the football program. The football program doesn't pay his salary but if it did that's about 50% of what it would gross annually. Like you said, he's worth whatever the community allows the board to pay him. I just think it's interesting that his individual salary is over 3X what the average household income is in Carthage.

Sounds like that might be right according to Stepp? I don't think BH could go wrong with either Wager or Abseck but if I had to question one it would be Abseck. He's only been a head coach 6 years and was basically handed the machine Chris Ross and Joe Willis built. He's done well maintaining it but can he come close to replicating those results without CP's money and athletes, TW couldn't? I remember Crosby playing Hutto in the regional final and thinking how we were about to get killed because of Hutto's size. The next round we played Cedar Park who was on a completely different level size-wise. The next year Abseck took over and won a title with a bunch of those returners. Wager has gotten to coach kids like Myles Garret so he too has been gifted with a bunch of talent and has a very good record but he's also been brutalized by the who's who of DFW coaches. Hard to fault him when the guys he's losing to include names like Lineweaver, Samples, Mathis and Westerberg though. His Martin teams have never been as talented on the whole as any of those other coach's teams but he's managed to still win one against them here and there. Not to mention he's the main catalyst for turning Martin into the solid program it's been the last decade or so. I know BH has kind of missed on hiring coaches to to drop down a class and take over their program but if it is down to these two I would think Wager is the better fit.

So they bumped Surratt up over $40k the last two years? I read an article where they gave him a $20k raise last year to $155k. He got another $20k+ added to his base salary this past year too?

After hiring TW away from Allen I don't think it will be a shocker even if they land Surratt. The two guys that would turn heads for me, albeit for different reasons, are Jeff Riordan and Hank Carter. Riordan because of previous ties and Carter because it would mean BH probably went to the $175k range to land him, although it may make sense for Carter to take a raise move to a place with a cheaper cost of living.

Lol, Highland Park is what it would look like if River Oaks had it's own high school. Riding through the Highland Park/University Park areas the first thing I noticed was the amount of Range Rovers per capita and secondly that the average home price is probably $3M which meant we needed to find HWY 75 and head back south to Oak Cliff. A football obsessed community with J.R Ewing as one of your neighbors is a pretty good recipe for the decades of success HP has had.

Going to be very interesting to see if George Ranch drops down to 5A-D1 for the upcoming alignment now that Richmond Randle is opening? Randle is only three miles from George Ranch which probably means GR will take a bigger hit than Rosenberg Terry and Lamar Con. Katy Paetow is projected to have an enrollment close to 2,800 kids so I expect them to move up to 6A and the new school Katy Jordan to replace them. Manvel is on the borderline and will probably barely make the 6A cutoff but if they don't you're potentially looking at a 10-5A-D1 consisting of; Manvel, George Ranch, Foster, Angleton and Hightower. Unrelated - 15+ years ago when I was going to school in the Dallas area we used to consider Frisco the sticks. I believe they only had two high schools in town. By the end of 2022 Frisco ISD will have 12 high schools with at least a 5A enrollment in an area smaller than Crosby ISD's attendance zone. I was going to one of my son's games a couple years ago and turned into Frisco Heritage High School. I didn't see any players so I asked if I was at the right field at which time I was told "No, you're looking for Frisco Independence". Independence was one block away. Both are 5A-D1. That's what type of suburban growth the larger schools in SETX are competing with.

Until the population down here realizes how far they are behind they'll never really grasp what it takes to win on that level. We don't have a lot of state champions down here so more often than not the local staffs are tasked with "building it on the current pad". All those schools you pointed out can just look to one of their neighbors and see how it's done, not to mention compete on a regular basis and get better against them. It's one thing to do it at the well-to-do districts like the ones you named but it's even more impressive to do it at schools like Desoto, Cedar Hill and Duncanville which are places 99% of the population in BH would never even consider living. Everybody is bought in everywhere up there. I have a good buddy who played on Plano's title team in '94 and has a son about to attend Plano East. He said other than North Shore and Katy that they don't even consider anybody else out of the Houston area a real factor. He said the majority of the teams in the area know that if they can win their district that they can probably win a state title which he had me agreeing with at the end of the conversation. The two best districts down here are the Katy and Cy-Fair ISDs and you can't really make that statement about either of those.

BH has a good DC but he's only there because of the compensation TW got for him. He's probably making right at or over $100k so there aren't many, if any, lateral moves around the state that will offer equal compensation. I think he also has a son in the program which may keep him put but from what I understand is looking to leave after TW's departure? I think he'll come highly recommended by TW which might be a good thing for the incoming coach or could possibly expedite him leaving for a DC/HC job at another program. Wish Crosby could've afforded him after our DC took the La Porte job.

Lol, every year we're supposed to be worst than the previous one because X kids graduated. Remember the Twins graduating and how bad we were supposed to be before we went to the semis the next year? Remember when Rio left we were supposed to be awful? "Crosby's little run is over" was the main comment I heard. As our community grows the deeper the talent pool we have to choose from which was pretty evident if you watched our Spring game the other day. We don't have hair rules so we can also accept all-state transfers like Reggie Branch who has dreads. We're getting bigger and even faster as seen with our 4x100 state title a few weeks ago. Long as we have a competent coach we're going to be competitive given the athletes that the community produces. Not to mention we just care more. It doesn't matter if you see it this year though, you dang sure didn't see it before last season and we got to the finals. If we end up like Dayton it's because we'll be in 6A. Dayton ended up in the situation they're in now because they think like Dayton. Crosby wouldn't hire a guy who hasn't coached in 5 years and give him the keys to the entire athletic program. As long as we don't have more financial issues or catastrophic injuries like '18, what you saw from Crosby in the '19 season is probably our floor now which are second round losses. Crosby only has two first round losses in a decade+ and those were to teams with generational talents for their schools like MQ and RJ. Crosby can be a better overall team this year and still lose to FB Marshall in the 3rd round. Won't be a knock on us at all, 90% of the teams that make it to Dallas have to have the stars align. I think Crosby being viewed as average by mediocre teams like BH is part of what drives our kids and coaching staff to separate from that mediocrity. I guarantee when offseason workouts start next week they'll be even more intense than last year's and you won't hear a peep out of the kids or parents. I personally love it because I can feed information like this to my son, who's coming off a broken leg, about how his class is supposed suck and maybe get that squat up to 500lbs before he enters his sophomore year in the fall.

BH views Crosby as just an average program. BH thinks they should be above average and average Crosby just played for a state title. They going to keep trying to buy their way to above average because there's precedent for other schools doing it. Unless guys just don't want the job I highly doubt they're going cheap.

I don't see anybody accusing them of an "ism"? Maybe that's what you're reading into it though? At the end of the day TW didn't like the hand he had been dealt/his boss at BH and left just like any employee at any other company would do in the same situation if they were able. BH has the right to make whatever rules they want, TW just proved not all coaches are willing to play by them.

All of that is true which is why I said "kinda". I think he stays through all of that though. I know he was excited about getting to coach these next few years worth of kids that Prieto is now getting.

We would have to see about little brother Walker, he's only head coached four games running the slot-t after his big brother died in November? Would probably be a couple more issues with a hire like that too. One, BH probably thinks they're above running an offense like that. Two, LH is all in on all sports and I'm not sure BH's community is willing to replicate their work ethic? Big difference coming from a Vidor-like community to BH.

Well, kinda. Crosby may be too close to BH for those "family reasons" not to resurface. Plus, if he puts together another solid season or two at CH he's probably in line for one of the big time DFW jobs which he probably prefers.

That's because the money for stuff like pitching/hitting lessons, travel ball, etc. have more of an impact in girls sports where the athletic abilities aren't as far apart as boys. Baseball is where that impact is felt the most in the major sports on the boys side as evidenced in the playoff bracket. Lol, it's an argument I always have with my girls sports supporter from BH.

Full disclosure, he absolutely is/was an ardent supporter of TW. Talked to him a good bit during TW's time on The Hill from what I understand. I don't think you can say he has an axe to grind if other staff feels the same way about the supt. as TW did from what I was told, particularly some of the teachers. They're just well paid and know better than making waves. As for making excuses for "underperforming" I think you really have to take step back and see what BH was before he came. He won more playoff games in one year than BH had the entire time they had been in 5A. Considering what BH was the five years before TW came I could make an argument that he actually overperformed with the personnel he had. I think TW was relaying reasons he wasn't winning more, not making excuses. Had he not been paid a bunch of money nobody would be saying BH underperformed during his tenure.

I could go into a lot more detail but why potentially ruin a kid's eligibility to prove something insignificant on a message board? It's speculative talk on a message board just like any other you visit. You have three options; believe it, don't believe or don't read it. Choice is yours.

I think you hit the nail on the head. That's why I said "unverifiable", supposedly it came from the horse's mouth. Guy could've taken time out of his day just to call me this morning to lie to me for a half hour though? He's one of the two people who have kids in the program whose information/insight I trust. I can tell you his older son transferred to Crosby and was a stud for us and now that TW left, his younger son will also transfer to Crosby next year. Just gave me info I didn't know about our coaching staff too. My co-worker played DT at SC State, currently goes about 6-3 325 and has a son in one of BH's middle schools who looks to be on the same track. He told me this morning his son will also be at Crosby in the next year or two. One of my sons in Crosby's program told me months ago that we got a kid whose family was moving to BH but decided to just go to Crosby because of that. Just left a department lunch which one of BH's all-district players mom happened to attended. Her husband is employed by BH ISD so she didn't really elaborate but was aware of the apartment comment. Another BH lady who was sitting there listening to us made a comment that's probably too controversial to post but was right in line with what my buddy was telling me this morning. *P.S. - You should probably change your location back to just "baseball". Things are back to regular now.

Supposedly, part of this reloading will consist of bringing in the DC from Bryan Rudder to replace Coach Tarr who took the La Porte job and also bringing in the DC from Channelview as co-DC. Definitely not two places you think of when you talk about defense but I won't be questioning any coaching decisions in the near future. Heck, maybe one of them teaches or DBs how to backpedal?

Totally unverifiable post, just information that was relayed by a football guy that lives in the BH district: Word in the back room is that TW left mainly because of the superintendent. Supt. would come into the office and question TW about some of the coaching decisions he was making. Undoubtedly the supt. used to coach in his pre-administrative days? The son left this past season after a discussion with the supt. that included something along the lines of "This isn't Dallas, you're not winning down here without athletes" from KW. Heard the Westerbergs were a little surprised with the personnel and the nonchalant attitude from the kids and parents towards winning in BH. Not sure exactly what part of the season/offseason it was but he gave an example of kids pulling into the parking lot for Saturday practice/workouts with boats hooked up to their trucks like, "We just have to hurry and get through this so we can go do X and not really focusing on the work that needed to be put in." Supposedly there are two things that happened that really rubbed TW the wrong way more than the supt.'s arrogance and questioning of his coaching. One was the hair situation that happened at BH. BH had several transfers lined up at the skill positions for the upcoming season and all pulled out after the news. Second, there was supposedly some school meeting where the supt. informed the staff that the district bought some land around I-10 and HWY 99 to keep an apartment complex that would've been zoned to BH from being built. Comment was along the lines of "We don't need that in our district". Sounds like the supt. just wore TW out and TW not really having to deal with it just chose to leave. Was also told the supt. has already reached out to Surratt who said he was good. The one sentiment I didn't get was that this was some sudden decision TW made, he had been on the fence for a while. I commented earlier about what TW would tell other coaches who asked him for advice about the BH job and now I think that's even more pertinent. *Unrelated - was told the supt. fired Price because he benched his son his senior year. Dick Olin had a lot to do with Murray ending up in Allen playing for his buddy TW after leaving Lewisville. TWs BASE salary was in the $160k range but had escalators pertaining to other sports that could've taken his salary to the $180k range.

Well, Liberty Hill averaged 57ppg this year, including dogging out some 6As, and was one point away from the title game running the . . . (clears throat) . . . slot-T. Buda Hays made the semis against Katy running it this year and SA Wagner was in the 5A-D1 semis against Shadow Creek running it in 2019. So there's precedent for running it with success in the higher classifications. BH definitely has better overall athletes than LH does.

I'm not sure Snelson could replicate what he does in Dickinson at BH? They're becoming known for producing those TEs but they also have kids like OTs Canon Boone who just signed with Mississippi State and 4* PJ Williams who's one of the top OTs in his class and committed to A&M. They have FBS talent on the defensive line too. Tells you they're very good at the LOS and they use those advantages to maul people. BH already tried that with Gage. I think they need to go the Lovejoy/Georgetown/Pioneer route where you emphasize QB play and offensive execution. GT went all the way to the title game without a single FBS signee(QB walked on somewhere). BH has been playing decent defense under TW and already has good enough receivers for a system like that, it would just come down to getting or developing QBs that could play at a high level. They need to stay away from the coaches that have 4*s just grazing in the hallways, plus Snelson is probably 60 already and has had some health problems. If I was BH I would swing for the fences again but I would also have some feelers out to a guy like Riordan just in case.