Imagine being a head coach preparing for a football season through virtual meeting rooms.

You can’t be around your student-athletes to put them through drills, install new playbooks, spot them as they hit new benchmarks in the weight room… simply high-five them.

Now imagine being a head coach trying to do all of that for a school that has yet to even open.

It’s hard to, isn’t it?

Such is reality right now for Mike Rabe, who, on Jan. 20, was formally introduced as the first head coach and athletic coordinator of Katy Jordan High School, Katy ISD’s ninth high school, which will open in August.

Like he’s done everywhere he’s been, Rabe is making the best out of the situation, choosing to view the glass as being half-full rather than the alternative.

“I was fortunate enough at the end of January and beginning of February to meet some of the kids and get to talk to some of the kids in our feeder system and some of our kids from other schools,” he said. “So I was able to see them in person before spring break hit and we were out of school.”

Being able to start his own varsity football program from scratch has always been a dream of Rabe’s, a Cuero native. To be able to do so in Katy ISD, though, in a school district he loves and respects? No amount of quarantining is going to dampen his spirts.

He’s been in precarious coaching situations before.

When he took over at Ganado in 2006 – his first season as a head coach – the Indians won one game. They won nine times in both 2008 and 2009 before he moved to Waco Connally, where he took a Cadets program from 0-10 in 2010 to a combined 16 wins in 2013-14 before accepting the same position at Katy Mayde Creek.

It was yet another rebuilding effort for Rabe, who took the Rams from a winless 2015 campaign to a nine-win season in 2019, the program’s best season in 22 years. That included a bi-district victory, the school’s first playoff win since 1997.

“I think Katy ISD, the athletic department, is run really well,” said Rabe, who was named the District 19-6A Coach of the Year in 2019. “I’ve enjoyed the five years I’ve worked with Coach [Debbie] Decker and the staff she has at the athletic administration office.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be the head coach at three programs that were all turnaround jobs. I’ve always dreamed about opening up a program. It just so happened that I didn’t want to leave Katy ISD and then they are opening up a new school that I was able to apply for. I was really fortunate that they did that for me.”

With Jordan opening on an even year (2020) and beginning with ninth and 10th grades, the Warriors won’t start varsity team sports until the fall of 2021, when the school has ninth, 10th and 11th graders.

While varsity football for Jordan won’t start until 2022, the next UIL realignment, that doesn’t mean the Warriors aren’t preparing for a season. They’ll play a condensed “outlaw” schedule this fall.

“We’ll play three other start-up programs and then four other programs that are lower classifications,” he said. “So 7 or 8 of our games will be varsity football-style games. That’s good for our kids. I don’t think you can be successful in this Katy district without playing some good competition first.”

Now, if he could just figure out what positions his kids are going to play. That will be something he and his coaching staff start to iron out the details on this month. They’ve spent the last several weeks meeting with the team on Zoom; three days a week are spent on home workouts with the other two focusing on offensive and defensive philosophy.

“It’s been real interesting, something that none of us have ever done,” said Rabe, who has an overall coaching record of 66-86. “But the kids have shown up every day ready to workout.

“We’ll start to get more in-depth in May, putting them in positions where their junior high coordinators think they ought to be.”

Jordan has one direct feeder school – Adams Junior High – where it knows there getting students from. Fortunately for Rabe, the coordinator at Adams, Kyle Mueller, worked with him at Mayde Creek.

“Then the junior high coordinator at Seven Lakes was a guy that was at my staff at Mayde Creek (Nick Barosh),” he said.

Rabe is counting on their history to allow the program to hit the ground running whenever they’re able to reconvene in person.

“I have a pretty good feeling of what kind of kids we have and what we’re capable of,” he said. “When you start getting into specifics like positions and things like that, we’re a little behind the eight-ball.”

Given Rabe’s history, that won’t be the case for long.

“It’s real exciting for me. It’s a different challenge. I’ve never been in this before,” he said. “We’re still designing the campus and making it look the way we want it to. Not coming in and having a varsity program ready to go has been unique.

“I’m excited about the buy-in we’ve had from the kids, the coaching staff we’ve put together for every sport has been really fun. It’s a real exciting time for our kids, the parents of that neighborhood.”

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