I have discovered it is a law of attraction fact--"the rich get richer and the poor 'get left behind.' "
We were accused of being recruited by Richland Spgs. while leaving in Follett. My memory fails me sometimes because I don't make an effort to remember negative comments. I think it was a peckerhead from the area near Turkey Valley who accused us of being recruited. You would think that I suppose.
However it is incorrect and a reach in the dark by a bumble-head.
We left Hermleigh to get the kids closer to their mother who was missing them dearly. So with no offers and blind faith we loaded up and moved in with granny until something could be located.
I applied all over the place within driving distance of Bwd. A month zipped by with no success. I applied at every sixman school inside 50 miles except Brookesmith.
I even arranged a meeting with two gentlemen at Zephyr and pulled out a highlight film of my sixth grade boy's football season. They watched the eleven minute film with polite attention. Afterwards, they seemed interested. Never got a call.
The Friday before coaching school I got a call from coach Clawson for a visit that afternoon. After seeing him I was scooted over to the supt. for an hour interview. It felt positive. Got a call that Saturday to meet in Richland the next day for a trip to the 2002 Sixman Coaching school in Lubbock. We were doing the East All-Star football game. I firmly believe I was hired mainly because a driver was needed to transport the RS school bus to Lubbock. Speculation.
I was okay with it all.
For a while my pride told me my hiring was due to my coaching philosophy
A month into the 2002 football season I put that foolish thought away. If anything I was hired despite my coaching beliefs and practices. Oh I did mention to Clawson that I thought I had a pretty fair athlete coming up. He usually responded with letting me know I would be allowed to coach my son in football even though I was hired to be the girl's basketball and CC coach. Very comforting. My experience had shown me to expect very little consideration like that in the school business.
In the spring of 2004 Jesstin Fox, Tyler's brother from Austin arrived, followed by Mark Williams from Victoria whose mother had once lived in RS. Both these boys were huge additions to our 8th grade class, making it a loaded group. We now had more athletes than we knew what to do with. Don't believe that.
The locals were Patrick Couch, Richie Daniels and Andrew Fowler who was actually a 7th grader but fit in with the 8th boys like a brother. And the foster boys were Shelby Smith and Jesstin Fox. The move-ins were Tyler and Mark Williams. None were recruited. That bunch showed the first signs of greatness when they blew out the competition at the Jr High district track meet in San Saba. I think we scored 220 odd points. We had a salty bunch of relayers in Tyler, Andrew, Jesstin and Patrick. Shelby won the 800 and mile. Andrew placed high in the sprints. Tyler won second in the 100 and 200, and ran a 43 second 300 Hurdles race, and won the long jump with a 19 foot jump. Jesstin won the 400 by a lot. Patrick placed high in the hurdles. We had three or four other lads score points in running events. We swept three or four field events, too.
I don't think Mark had arrived yet, or maybe he had but was taking his time cutting his braids off so we would allow him to participate. Cant remember. That may have been the next year.