Renee Marler
Renee@CedarbrookMedia.com
How many of you were aware of the Texas High School Coaches Association (THCSA)? If you come from a coaching family or have been involved in UIL High School sports for a while, you’ve probably heard about it and might even know what it does.
Well, let’s go inside the locker room and discuss the THSCA, it’s history, it’s members, and it’s objectives.
According to the website, The Texas High School Coaches Association (THSCA) is the principle advocate and leadership organization for Texas high school coaches with a main objective to help coaches help kids.
“Our mission statement is simply this: To help and serve our Texas high school coaches as they work to help and serve our student athletes,” it says.
The THSCA was officially organized 87 years ago in 1930 with just 28 members as the Texas High School Football Coaches Association. Three years after it was formed, they hosted a coaching clinic in San Antonio and 65 coaches attended. The word “football” was dropped from the association in 1941 to allow membership of coaches in differing sports, specifically basketball at the time. Today, the THSCA has grown exponentially from those 28 members to almost 22,000, making it the largest organization of this kind in the world.
Each year approximately 13,000 athletic directors, interns, graduate assistants and others flock to the annual conference and coaching school.
Some of the confirmed speakers for the 2017 conference, which is being held in Houston this week, are Tom Herman (Head Football Coach, University of Texas), Major Applewhite (Head Football Coach, University of Houston), Matt Rhule (Head Football Coach, Baylor University), Jamie Dixon (Head Basketball Coach, Texas Christian University), Tim Jankovich (Head Basketball Coach, Southern Methodist University) and many others.
The conference also hosts the THSCA Head Coaching Academy for current head coaches as well as those with head coaching aspirations.
Breakout sessions covering every aspect of every sport form Football, Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Powerlifting, Wrestling, Track, etc are available throughout the week for coaches to attend.
The objectives of the THSCA is to help maintain the highest standards in the coaching profession by promoting fellowship amongst the coaches in the State.
We, in Prosper, are fortunate that our Athletic Director, Valerie Little, is in attendance this year. Look for a follow-up on her thoughts from this week here in the Prosper Times.
