Ponder ISD on Tuesday announced the hiring of Humble head coach Marcus Schulz as the next head football coach at Ponder High School.

He replaces Kyle Cooper, who departed after two seasons to take over as athletic director and head coach at La Grange.

Schulz is a native of Sanger and played collegiately at nearby Austin College where he was a Division III All-American defensive back. He began his coaching career at Gainesville where he spent two seasons coaching in the secondary; he was part of a state runner-up squad in 2005.

“Ponder is in the early stages of becoming a football town,” he said. “They’ve been successful in a lot of sport. They’ve got a growing community that supports their athletics and school. I’ve got family in the area. I grew up nearby and having the opportunity to be close to home was too good to pass up and was appealing for the entire family.”

He then moved back to his alma mater where he spent two seasons on staff at Sanger before he headed out to West Texas to re-join former Gainesville head coach Jeff Cordell on staff at Andrews where he spent three seasons as the defensive coordinator.

Schulz returned to the I-35 corridor after three seasons out west where he became the defensive coordinator at Hillsboro. After three seasons in Central Texas, Schulz got his first chance to be a head coach in 2014 as he took over at long-struggling Splendora. After winning just nine games in his first four seasons, Schulz took the Wildcats on a magical run in 2018 when it went 10-2, the school’s first 10-win season in school history. It was also only the school’s fifth district title. Splendora also won its first-ever playoff game that season.

After going 5-4 at Splendora in 2019 and leading SHS back to the playoffs in 2020, Schulz moved to Class 6A Humble where after a 2-8 mark in 2021, Schulz’s Wildcats showed major improvement in one of the state’s toughest districts leading Humble to a 5-5 mark in 2022. 

“Coming in I feel like we’ve changed the athletics and campus culture and that’s a big credit to the coaching staff and administration at Humble High,” he said. “We’ve moved the needle in the right direction and I’m hoping that the upward trajectory can continue.

“I’m really proud of the failure rate in boys athletics going from 24 percent to 7 percent during the past two years, these kids have worked so hard and I’m proud of them. I also can’t say enough about Troy Kite (Humble ISD Athletic Director) and his leadership; he’s first class.”