Austin Eastside is the most unlikely playoff team in Texas high school football.
The Panthers endured 51 straight losses from 2017 through 2023, one of the state’s longest streaks. Head coach Luis Becerra was hired in the midst of that streak on July 9, 2018. At his first team meeting, four faces stared skeptically back at him. He had to hit the hallways to recruit his own students to the football team, miraculously convincing ten others to join. Austin Eastside scored 14 combined points in those first two seasons. The lack of numbers forced the coaches to field one football team across all four grade levels, creating a harrowing cycle of varsity teams composed almost exclusively of freshmen. Most would quit after one season.
The wins hadn’t come by the 2023 season, but Becerra and his staff had built enough interest in the program where they could have a freshman football team in addition to the varsity. From their first day on campus, Becerra told them their graduating class would be the group to change Austin Eastside football. That foundational group, now juniors, just earned the program’s first playoff appearance since 1991, when the school was called Austin Johnston.
“(As freshmen), I would say we were being role models to the varsity, even,” junior quarterback Aydan Aguilar said. “We were there at practice every day putting in that work and staying up in our classes. We knew what the next years held for us.”
Much of that hope rested on the shoulders of quarterback Jadaen Williams-Pringle. Jadaen made football look fun. He seemingly always made the right decision, whether that be to sling it down the field or tuck it and scamper for a first down. But most importantly, Jadaen had swagger. It wasn’t the kind that boasted, ‘I’m better than you,’ but the kind that convinced his teammates, ‘You are better than you think you are.’
“He was a leader,” Aguilar said. “He knew how to bring people up and let them shine. When I first started playing quarterback, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to try because I saw him doing it, and it looked fun. He showed me the ropes and was a really good teacher and role model.”
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