John Berry Leaves Gladewater to Become Defensive Coordinator at Longview

After six highly successful seasons leading Gladewater, head coach John Berry is headed back to Longview to become the Lobos defensive coordinator.

Berry, who was an assistant at Longview from 2000-2010, went to Gladewater as an assistant until the 2014 season when he became the head coach of the Bears.

In six seasons at GHS, he posted an impressive 47-25 record, leading Gladewater to the regional semifinals twice and in 2019 the Bears advanced to the regional finals before falling in overtime to Pottsboro.

Gladewater ISD moved quickly to replace Berry as they promoted assistant athletic director Scott Clower to the athletic director role and promoted assistant head coach Jermaine Lewis to head football coach.

Lewis, an alum of Houston Wheatley, played college basketball at UNLV. In addition to serving as assistant head coach, he was the head girls basketball coach at Gladewater. He inherits a team that posted a 10-4 mark in 2019 and has aspirations of a state title as nine offensive and six defensive starters return.

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Sam Perez Retires at Falfurrias

After three seasons leading the Fighting Jersey Bulls of Falfurrias, Sam Perez announced his retirement this week opening the head coach/athletic director role at Falfurrias.

Perez led the Jersey’s to a 6-4 mark in his final season at the helm.

Falfurrias is the fourth program in the new District 16-3A Division I to be looking for a head coach this offseason as Bishop, Kingsville Academy and Progreso will all have new head coaches for the 2020 season.

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Karnes City Opens

In a bit of a surprise move, Karnes City head coach Jim Wood (an alum of KCHS) told Dave Campbell’s Texas Football on Wednesday morning he was stepping aside as head coach at Karnes City to take another position within the district.

Wood had spent the last nine seasons leading the Badgers to a 41-52 record, with his best season being a 10-2 mark in 2014.

His departure opens up an attractive job in South Texas as the Badgers, who were 5-5 a year ago, move down to 3A-Division II. The key question here is with the timing of the move, does this result in just an internal promotion?

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Tenaha Changes… Again

One of the powerhouse programs in East Texas at the small school level will again have a new head coach in 2019 as Robert Tamplin, who led the Tigers to a 5-5 record as a 2A-Division I school, will take a step back and go back to being an assistant for 2020. 

Tenaha will have its fourth head coach in four seasons; Terry Ward left the program after the 2017 season to take over at Harleton. Greg Jenkins served as both the head boys basketball coach and head football coach along with handling the athletic director duties in 2018. Jenkins then for 2019 handled the basketball duties and athletic director duties, while Tamplin was promoted to head football coach.

Jenkins will now move into another role within district administration, while still serving as a head boys basketball coach as Tamplin steps down.

Are you able to keep up?

With all this movement and with Tamplin already being retained, this seems like Tenaha may already have a target for the new head coach and it’ll be someone who has ties to the program and will be willing to work within the parameters that are already in place.

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Fort Worth ISD Fills Two Open Jobs

After lengthy searches, Fort Worth ISD has finally filled two head coaching openings.

Paschal, the district’s only 6A program, named The Colony offensive coordinator John Killough as its head football coach, while at 4A Carter-Riverside named Philip Murray its next head coach.

Killough will be embarking on his first head coaching gig, while Murray spent 2015 as the head coach at Dallas Jefferson, leading the Patriots to their best record in years as they went 4-6.

Murray most recently was an assistant at Richardson Pearce. Killough before arriving at The Colony was an assistant at Flower Mound Marcus and was also previously an assistant at LaMarque where he was on staff for their 2006 state championship squad.

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Matt Stepp is the Texas High School Football Inside for Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Find him on Twitter: @Matt_Stepp817.