Mathis High School, a Class 3A program located just north of Corpus Christi on I-37, is eight days away from opening the 2023 Texas High School Football season at home against Ingleside, yet, shockingly, they don’t officially have a head coach hired to lead the team. 

The 221st UIL 11-man TXHSFB head coaching vacancy has been open since June 2 when Trae Stevens resigned his post to pursue opportunities outside of coaching. Stevens led Mathis for the four seasons prior after being hired in February 2019. 

Most around Corpus Christi expected a quick and seamless promotion of defensive coordinator Roger Masters to the position of AD/HFC in Mathis ISD; Masters worked with MISD superintendent Tim Norman in 2020 and 2021 when Norman was the superintendent in Hubbard ISD and Masters served as Hubbard’s AD/HFC. Masters has served as Mathis’ interim AD/HFC since June, running offseason and the summer strength program and helped the Pirates start fall practice and kick off the athletic year last week. Indications are he has done a good job to this point. 

Yet Masters is still in the interim role to our knowledge as Mathis ISD is still conducting interviews for its AD/HFC vacancy today. Why hasn’t Mathis ISD named a coach or at least confirmed Masters will serve in that interim capacity for the 2023 football season? 

There’s plenty of speculation out there and from dealing with coaching searches across the state for years, my only guess is the students of Mathis ISD at the moment are likely the victim of small-town politics. I’ve got no inside knowledge of what’s going on currently in Mathis off the field, but the only explanation in this delay is some sort of power play or struggle between district administration and the school board. There’s no other way to explain why after two months and two weeks into the start of fall practice Mathis hasn’t made any sort of announcement. 

If you are Mathis Pirate football fan, parent or alum you can only hope at this point that in the next day or two some kind of announcement is made and a resolution (even if it is temporary) can be reached, so the Pirates, especially their seniors can have a memorable 2023 football season.