The stakes could not have been higher for this Houston Memorial baseball game.

Arch-rival Houston Stratford across the diamond. District Championship on the line. In the University of Houston’s baseball stadium. Everything a young man dreams about — and every ingredient that makes his stomach do somersaults before the first pitch. 

Pitcher Grant Sperandio could feel his team’s tightness during pregame batting practice. Sure, the Mustangs had won a district championship the year prior. But for the past couple of years, they’d always fallen short of their state championship expectations. The most frustrating part was that there wasn’t anything they could point to as an excuse — no lack of talent or gruesome injury or even a lineup change that turned out to be a bad decision.

This will sound very woo-woo, but Houston Memorial had been searching for an invisible quality; some sort of attitude or edge. And Sperandio knew his teammates were so tense because they all knew they hadn’t found it yet. 

As the players milled around the dugout, their silence speaking volumes, they all noticed one of the coaches sprinting around the outfield shagging balls. There was Brooks Haack, the head football coach turned interim baseball coach, catching pop flies and fielding grounders with a big smile plastered on his face. He couldn’t care less that his shoddy technique looked like someone who’d stopped playing baseball in ninth grade. The scene was so unusual that it took all the kids out of the biggest moment of their lives, and brought them back to why they’d fallen in love with baseball in the first place. 

“It’s a kid’s game, and we get to play it,” Sperandio said. “We’re one of four teams that are still going. He (Haack) reminds us to have fun and enjoy it while it lasts. Even if we do win it all, we only have two more weeks, so play every day like it’s going to be our last.”

The Mustangs won that district championship game and 20 other games in a row en route to the first state semifinal appearance in program history. It’s a remarkable accomplishment made almost absurd once you realize that Haack only started with the team a week before spring break and has never coached baseball in his life. He hasn’t even played baseball since he was a ninth grader at nearby Katy High School. 

Haack had every excuse to delegate this role when Spring Branch ISD’s athletic administration asked him to step in midway through the season. His football team was in the heart of the offseason program; Haack had led the Mustangs to their first district championship since 2011. But there were so many three-year starters on that team, and they had to replace them if they wanted to repeat that success. Coaching baseball could distract him.

But declining the call never crossed Haack’s mind. He may have been hired as a football coach, but his job description called for him to step up far beyond the white lines. He thought back to winning a state championship at Richmond Randle High School with his mentor, head coach Brian Randle, and how Randle had spent a whole year before that season coaching the freshman basketball B team to fill a need within the school.

“It’s one of those things where you ask yourself, ‘Man, what are we doing this for?’” Haack said. “Ultimately, it’s for the kids.”