Month: April 2020

Jordan High head coaching staff filled as school opening lies on horizon
Jordan High School is Katy ISD’s ninth high school scheduled to open this August.

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

Mike Rabe was formally introduced as the Jordan High head football coach and athletic coordinator in late January. Since then, Rabe has been hard at work putting together the athletic department staff for Katy ISD’s ninth high school.

The school is almost ready for occupancy and for faculty to move into, but Rabe has already put together the Warriors’ athletics staff in a little less than three months. Jordan is scheduled to be ready to open by the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

“This is an opportunity to not have to do anything over. You get to go in and do everything from day one. It’s real exciting,” Rabe said after he was hired. “It’s a special opportunity to be able to open up a high school. You look across the state and there’s not many of those that happen. You see several each year, but it’s a small opportunity to be able to jump in and do that.”

Jordan High submitted an initial enrollment number of 1,586.69 in late October.

Because Jordan is opening on an even year (2020) and beginning with ninth and 10th grades, Jordan’s individual sports will go varsity right away but team sports will wait until the fall of 2021, when the school has ninth, 10th and 11th graders. The only sport that is not able to be placed in realignment on the “middle” year, or halfway between the two-year realignment, is football.

Football for Jordan High won’t be realigned by the UIL until 2022, which will be Jordan’s first varsity football season. Until then, the district will try to mix and match schedules for Jordan to play football, just not under the UIL umbrella.

Here is a list of the head coach for each respective sport at the school, with the coach’s former school/job in parentheses:

Baseball: Zach Maddox (Tompkins High baseball assistant coach)

Boys Basketball: Charlie Jones (George Ranch boys basketball head coach)

Girls Basketball: Andy Rice (Taylor High girls basketball assistant coach)

Boys Cross Country: Mabry Allen (Mayde Creek football assistant coach)

Girls Cross Country: Kymberlee Trnka (Mayde Creek cross country head coach/assistant track coach)

Football: Mike Rabe (Mayde Creek football head coach)

Golf: Ken Rose (Arlington Martin golf head coach)

Boys Soccer: Jason Meekins (Ridge Point boys soccer head coach)

Girls Soccer: Rennie Rebe (Pflugerville Hendrickson girls soccer head coach)

Softball: Jennifer Hooker (Taylor softball assistant coach)

Swimming: Scott Slay (Richmond Foster swimming head coach)

Tennis: Paul Wallace (Morton Ranch tennis head coach)

Boys Track: Ryan Henry (Mayde Creek boys track head coach/assistant football coach)

Girls Track: Kymberlee Trnka (Mayde Creek cross country head coach/assistant track coach)

Athletic Trainer: Shelle Brown

Volleyball: Jen Vaden (Mayde Creek volleyball head coach)

Wrestling: Mike White (Cypress Woods wrestling head coach)

Clemons signs with Chiefs as undrafted free agent
Former Taylor High star and SMU standout Rodney Clemons was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Kansas City Chiefs on Saturday. (PHOTO COURTESY OF SMU ATHLETICS)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

Former Taylor High star and SMU standout Rodney Clemons was signed by the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent late Saturday evening.

The 6-foot, 209-pound safety was projected to go anywhere from the fifth round to undrafted during this weekend’s NFL Draft. Clemons had a strong 2019 senior season for the 10-3 Mustangs as a team captain, compiling 78 total tackles and a team-high four interceptions and nine pass breakups. But his 4.71 40-yard dash time at February’s NFL Scouting Combine, to go with questions about his quickness and instincts, hampered his chances of being drafted.

Clemons joins a Chiefs team that returns 20 of 22 starters. Returning veterans at safety are Daniel Sorensen and Armani Watts at free safety and Tyrann Mathieu at strong safety. In this year’s draft, Kansas City selected a running back, linebacker, cornerback, defensive end and cornerback. The Chiefs added five more defensive backs in free agency, including Clemons. Three of those were cornerbacks.

Prior to the draft, Clemons said earlier this week in a feature story on 281SportsUnlimited that he desired a situation where he could compete for a starting position and have the chance to play right away.

Continue reading “Clemons signs with Chiefs as undrafted free agent” →

Former Taylor star Clemons on verge of NFL dream
Rodney Clemons shown during a game for SMU last season. (Photo Courtesy of SMU Athletics)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

During his first spring football practice as head coach of Taylor High in 2014, Trey Herrmann remembers hearing an abrasive crunch of physical contact.

“I didn’t see the hit,” Herrmann recalled six years later. “I heard it.”

Herrmann turned around to see then-junior Rodney Clemons getting back up off the running back.

“I said, ‘Yep, I was right,’” Herrmann said. “‘That’s my starting safety right there.’”

Just a couple of months before, Herrmann had convinced Clemons, frustrated and done with football after two years of hardly seeing the field, to not hang up the cleats just yet.

“I was at a junior varsity basketball game, sitting next to (then-school principal) Mr. (Jeff) Stocks, and I saw Rodney,” Herrmann said. “Just the way he moved on the floor, as far as his footwork and ability to be around the ball at all times. I asked Mr. Stocks, ‘Hey, who’s that kid?’ ‘That’s Rodney Clemons.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s my starting safety right there.’ He just had all the attributes I look for in a safety.”

So goes the beginning of a wonderous story for Clemons, a 6-foot, 209-pound safety out of SMU who is expected to go anywhere in the fifth through seventh rounds of the NFL Draft this weekend. The draft, which will be held over three days, will be aired on ESPN. Round one will be held Thursday, rounds two and three on Friday, and the last four rounds on Saturday.

Continue reading “Former Taylor star Clemons on verge of NFL dream” →

Falcons left wondering what-if after cancelation of dominant season
Katy Tx. Jan. 11, 2020: The Tompkins Lady Falcons win their bracket in the I-10 Soccer Shootout in a match against McAllen at Legacy Stadium in Katy. (Photo by Mark Goodman)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | @densilva2@gmail.com

The inevitable occurred on the afternoon of Friday, April 17, but it didn’t make the sting of a lost season any easier to take.

The UIL’s cancellation of remaining spring sports and state championships because of necessary precautions due to the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, left a plethora of ‘only-ifs’ in the Katy ISD sports community.

Only if Katy softball had been granted a postseason in which to defend its 2019 Class 6A state championship. The Tigers will get another chance next year, yes, but the seniors won’t have a shot at pursuing back-to-back titles. Only if Tompkins senior golfer Elina Sinz had been awarded one more shot at playing for state and an individual championship. Only if the Katy High girls track team or Paetow senior jumper Johnathan Baker or Taylor junior thrower Bryce Foster or Tompkins’ boys and girls track and field teams were given a chance to strut their stuff at state in Austin, smashing records along the way.

The Tompkins, Seven Lakes and Cinco Ranch boys soccer teams were all state-ranked and all viable candidates to represent the district at state.

So on and so on. The ‘what-ifs’ from this high school spring sports season would make for a compelling ESPN “30 for 30” documentary.

But arguably the biggest storyline left unanswered will be that of Tompkins girls soccer.

Continue reading “Falcons left wondering what-if after cancelation of dominant season” →

Late Oilers coach Biles ended career in Cypress
Ed Biles.

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

Long after a distinguished tenure with the Houston Oilers, the late Ed Biles spent the final year of his remarkable coaching career as a volunteer for an indoor arena football team in Cypress.

Biles died April 5 following a battle with leukemia. He was 88 years old. Biles coached 14 years in the NFL, beginning as an assistant with the New Orleans Saints in 1969 and finishing as head coach of the Oilers from 1981-1983 after serving as Houston’s defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator under Bum Phillips from 1974-1980.

Biles is fondly remembered most for those beloved “Luv Ya Blue” days.

But 14 years after wrapping up his NFL coaching career, Biles was back in football in 2007 as a volunteer assistant/quality control coach for the AF2’s Texas Copperheads, who practiced and played their home games at Cypress Fairbanks ISD’s Berry Center. The af2 was the minor league for the Arena Football League.

Continue reading “Late Oilers coach Biles ended career in Cypress” →

Taylor’s Carrillo makes masks for healthcare workers, others
Taylor High sophomore volleyball player Devon Carrillo shows off masks she made for healthcare workers and family and friends. (COURTESY PHOTO)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

A little more than a week ago, Devon Carrillo realized she could play a significant role helping others during this crucial time of need.

With healthcare face masks at a premium due to precautions for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, the Taylor High sophomore varsity volleyball player knew she could make a difference.

“I really thought, ‘Oh, well I can make masks and I have materials at home I can use,’” Carrillo, 16, said. “It started from there. A lot of people ended up seeing them and posting about it, so then I ended up just making them for basically anyone who wanted one.”

Continue reading “Taylor’s Carrillo makes masks for healthcare workers, others” →

Mayde Creek’s Kriesel leaves impact as Ram, Ladyjack
Katy native Ashley Kriesel is shown pitching for Stephen F Austin University (COURTESY STEPHEN F. AUSTIN UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS)

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

Mayde Creek softball coach Jill Voss struggles to pick her favorite Ashley Kriesel moment. Two come to mind.

The first came during the spring of 2016, between Games 2 and 3 of the Rams’ best-of-three area playoff series against previously undefeated Cypress Woods. Voss was a nervous wreck, her team down to a do-or-die game and a potential program-defining upset win. In midst of the rollercoaster pregame emotions and thoughts, Voss lost her lineup card and scurried back behind the dugout, where she tried to hold back tears.

“Nobody saw me. Ashley comes behind and I told her, ‘Hey, we need you. So, if you can go, we need you to go,’” Voss recalled telling her senior ace pitcher, who had also pitched each of the first two games of the series. “And she says to me, ‘No, we need you! Get in here!’ I’m in tears, trying to hold it together, and she calls me back to the dugout and I just say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

Voss laughs at the memory.

“She was our mother hen,” Voss said.

Continue reading “Mayde Creek’s Kriesel leaves impact as Ram, Ladyjack” →

From writing letters to leading a program: Katy’s Burg takes over at Georgia Southern
Then-Texas Tech assistant coach Brian Burg, left, talks to head coach Chris Beard during a game.

BY DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

For 29 consecutive days in 2005, Brian Burg wrote letters to then-Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Bob Knight and Knight’s then-assistant coach Chris Beard.

Burg, fresh off a graduate assistant coaching gig at NCAA Division III Lake Erie College, knew he wanted to be a basketball coach. But he needed an opportunity.

Burg admired Beard for the passion and communication skills he saw first-hand when Beard coached summer camps Burg attended as a child. So, Burg tried his luck. Day after day produced letter after letter. Finally, after Knight got perturbed with Burg’s persistence, Burg received an exasperated call from Beard, who acknowledged Burg’s desire, told him to stop writing Knight, and eventually set Burg up with a job for a junior college program.

Since then, it’s been a grind for the Katy native Burg in climbing the ladder of a profession that’s not for the meek. From Garden City Community College to Western Texas College to Middle Tennessee State to Campbell to North Carolina Central to Little Rock. Then, in 2016, landing at Texas Tech under Beard, enjoying a mesmerizing Final Four run to the championship game in 2019, and then, now, to the culmination of it all in Statesboro, Georgia.

Continue reading “From writing letters to leading a program: Katy’s Burg takes over at Georgia Southern” →

Katy native, Dynamo GK Nelson waiting out COVID-19
Katy native and Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Michael Nelson is shown playing for Rio Grande Valley FC, the Dynamo’s United Soccer League affiliate club.

By DENNIS SILVA II | densilva2@gmail.com

As a third-year player for Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamo, Michael Nelson is used to the best of the best in the sport, particularly when it applies to training.

But Nelson, a Katy native and former Seven Lakes High star, had to dive deep into his creativity recently to come up with ways to exercise.

“I have a 60-pound dog, so he was a pretty good weight for some lower-body exercises, some squats,” Nelson said. “The first week or two were pretty interesting.”

Nelson is supposed to be with the Dynamo, weeks into the 2020 season. Instead, because of MLS suspending matches indefinitely as of March 19 because of precautions for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, the 25-year-old backup goalkeeper is stuck at home. The Dynamo’s season was abruptly halted after two games because of the crisis and Nelson is now limiting activity and movement due to social distancing.

Continue reading “Katy native, Dynamo GK Nelson waiting out COVID-19” →