SAN ANTONIO - - Football can’t surprise Scott Abell much anymore. He’s coached his way up the ladder since 1993, from the high school ranks and Division III to the FCS. But as the new head man at Rice University, the veteran coach is a Texas rookie. On the Monday of his first THSCA Coaching School, his eyes were as wide as the state.

“There’s nothing like this in the entire country,” Abell said. “What Texas high school sports have done to create this is extraordinary. It exceeded my expectations, which is tough.”

Non-coaches don’t know what the hell it is, and coaches from out of state only hear whispers of it. But for Texas coaches, THSCA Coaching School is the Summer Super Bowl.

The first iteration in 1933 had 65 attendees. Now, it averages over 18,000. For the 93rd anniversary, coaches from across the state flocked to San Antonio for a three-day convention with 253 hours of coaching lectures, 32 press conferences and countless cold ones shared among old (and new) friends.

It’s the only place in the world where Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko walk the halls and swap stories with Class 2A coaches from the Panhandle.

When Abell asked his defensive coordinator Jon Kay, who won four state championships as Galena Park North Shore’s head coach, what the new staff’s first priority should be, Kay mentioned the need for a strong showing at Coaching School.

Kay is one of several college coaches who also have experience as a high school head coach. UTSA head coach and Gilmer legend Jeff Traylor was inducted into the THSCA Hall of Honor to kick off his 37th-consecutive Coaching School.

“We are thick,” Traylor said. “I know outsiders call us a cult, or the Mafia, all kind of little words and innuendos. But you mess with one Texas high school football coach, you’re messing with a bunch of them.”

Coaching School is the most important event for college coaches to develop strong relationships with the Texas high school football community. On opening day, all 13 FBS head coaches sit on one panel and speak directly to an auditorium about the state of the sport. The high school coaches hang on, and judge, every word those 13 say about how they navigate the current recruiting landscape, NIL, Transfer Portal, revenue sharing and even work-life balance.

The more that money changes the playing field between college and high school, the greater importance placed on the relationships amongst the two levels of coaches. Sure, the event is a chance to catch up with buddies. But it’s also an opportunity to stand in solidarity for preserving the model of public school athletics they all love.

“There’s no doubt this game is under attack,” UTEP head coach Scotty Walden said. “It’s under attack by the people outside of the building: the agents, the people in your kids’ DMs, the guys that are trying to direct these young men to make decisions based on money.”

When they aren’t discussing existential state-of-the-game topics, the college coordinators are conducting “chalk talks” for high school coaches, breaking down their film and schemes. Traylor even has an open invite for UTSA’s Monday practice. He said there were 100 high school coaches already at his facility when he showed up at 6:30 a.m.

“(UTSA special teams coordinator) Zach Brown is speaking yesterday on special teams at 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and you would have thought Nick Saban was holding court,” Traylor said. “That thing was completely packed. I’m not dare saying that’s because the Roadrunners were speaking. It's the THSCA.”

These clinics play a large part in the level of coaching seen across the state. Rob Navarro, who currently serves as Harlingen South’s wide receivers coach, said his favorite part of the event was listening to University of Texas running backs coach Chad Scott break down how the Longhorns scored against Ohio State’s defense in the Cotton Bowl.

“As a UT fan, I’ve watched them score running back wheel routes for touchdowns and I’m like, ‘Man, how is that open every single week?’” Navarro said. “But after learning how he coaches it and how they stem those routes to look the same for every running back and any route they run out of the backfield, no wonder these guys are getting open.”

Coaching School isn’t just a place to learn how to do the job better, it’s also an opportunity to get an actual job. In 2021, Eli Reinhart was an offensive analyst at Central Michigan looking to get back into the high school ranks. Hoping for a job in Texas, he got on the THSCA website and applied for a job at Austin Anderson High School. The athletic director told him that he should come to Coaching School to interview.

“I have no idea what that is, but sure,” Reinhart said.

Reinhart got on a plane and got the job. Four years later, he won a state championship as North Crowley’s offensive coordinator and took the Hutto High School head coach job.

The networking also applies to media members. Sam Khan Jr., a senior writer at The Athletic, calls Coaching School his most important trip of the year. He tracks a running list of every coach he’s either caught up with or met for the first time in his phone’s notes app. Most years, that tally is close to 100 people in the span of 48 hours.

“If somebody has seen me here and we’ve chopped it up for 10 to 15 minutes and got to know each other a little bit, chances are if I call them later and need something, they’ll pick up the phone or return my call,” Khan Jr. said. “It doesn’t mean they’re going to be an inside source for everything, but it’s the start of something.”

Most who attend Coaching School long enough notice that the faces they recognize increases on an exponential curve. Van head coach Jared Moffatt remembers his first year at Coaching School as a Denton Ryan assistant when he walked around with his boss, Joey Florence. Moffatt knew next to no one, but the pair couldn’t walk three steps without Florence stopping to chat with another person. Now in his 27th year, Moffatt is in the same position Florence was. Every summer, he and his buddies swap the same stories, and they always bring a laugh like it’s the first time they’ve heard them.

Moffatt says this event shows coaches like himself how lucky they are to coach in Texas.

“There are states where half their coaches are part-time coaches and they have other job professions while they coach,” Moffatt said. “But we’re not like that here, and I think we forget that sometimes. It’s always good to remember why we have what we have and what makes it special here. That’s easy to take for granted.”

The event’s reputation has grown to the point where out-of-state coaches even travel to attend. Kenny Robinson works at Artesia High School in New Mexico, but he felt underwhelmed after attending New Mexico’s coaches conference, which had one offensive speaker and one defensive speaker from the University of New Mexico. So he and his colleagues drove six hours to attend the Texas version.

Robinson said he was shocked by how many other sports were represented outside of football, which is uniquely important to him. At Artesia, he coaches football, basketball, track and even serves as the team’s baseball announcer and stat keeper.

“I was looking at the (speaker) schedule, they have every single sport,” Robinson said. “I’ve seen swimming and cross country. I’m just like, ‘Wow, I’m surprised more New Mexico coaches don’t come out here with the amount of knowledge and people they’re getting to come in.’”

The inclusivity of coaches is part of a direct effort by the THSCA. Since Libby Pacheco was hired in January 2022 as Chief Operating Officer of THSCA’s Education Foundation, female membership in the association has increased from 11 percent to 21 percent. Now, 40 percent of THSCA members coach a girls’ sport.

Terrenee Knight, the Athletics Program Administrator for Prosper ISD, has seen that change firsthand in her 16 years attending Coaching School. She used to tell her staff that they needed to give women the opportunity to be seen. The THSCA has responded by serving them better.

“They’re so intentional about making sure that there’s a little something for everybody,” Knight said. “The athletic trainers now have an opportunity to be here. Women’s sports are so much more represented.”

As the unofficial end of summer vacation, Coaching School fuels the educators who attend to give back to students throughout the academic calendar.

“There’s no other place in the country that guys are as hungry to be great as Texas High School football coaches,” Traylor said.

And there’s no other event in the country that brings them all to one place.