By LONNIE KING  |  © 2025, Big Daddy’s Texas Sports

When Dave Campbell’s Texas Football released the results of its anonymous survey of more than 200 Texas high school football coaches, the responses struck a nerve. For once, coaches didn’t have to measure every word for fear of drawing the ire of administrators, the UIL, or state leaders.

Anonymity gave them the rare freedom to be blunt.

Whether it’s right or wrong, being a high school football coach in Texas makes you a lightning rod in many communities—a community leader who’s expected to straddle a line and avoid politics. Many of these coaches don’t want to get political, because every stance can ripple through the community or put them at odds with state expectations.

That’s why the importance of an anonymous survey like this one can’t be overstated.

It included a broad swath of coaches at levels from 2A to 6A and it produced some results that you might have easily expected and others you might never have expected.

A Window into the Political Climate

Texas high school football is more than a sport; it’s a cultural institution. But the survey revealed just how uneasy many coaches are about the way issues that are fueled by politics have seeped into the game.

Whether the issue is NIL for high school athletes, or pressure to maintaining safe and competitive programs as state funding shrinks, coaches made it clear that these aren’t abstract debates. They are daily realities, hanging over practices, locker rooms, and Friday nights under the lights.

Several coaches admitted they feel forced at times to comply with mandates that don’t reflect the lived realities of their players or communities. Others may fear that speaking too openly could cost them their jobs.  

What Coaches Say They Want

Amid the concerns, coaches also revealed a collective longing for the game’s future, as well as the success of the students they work with.  

The themes that surfaced were strikingly consistent:

• Protecting Player Safety
  Coaches want continued investment in equipment, training, and medical resources. Many said they worry about long-term participation if parents lose confidence that football can be played responsibly.
• Maintaining Community Identity
  Despite all the external noise, coaches overwhelmingly want football to remain a place where communities can come together. For them, Friday nights are less about politics and more about pride in local kids competing for something bigger than themselves.
• Clarity on NIL and Recruiting Rules
  While some coaches see NIL as inevitable, many voiced frustration about the lack of clear, consistent guidelines. Without reforms, they fear recruiting advantages could tilt even further toward a handful of powerhouse programs.

In short: they want to preserve what makes Texas high school football unique while adapting carefully to new realities.

Surprisingly, the stereotype of the head football coach who demands his players devote themselves to football every day, every year, didn’t hold up.  Almost unanimously, the coaches surveyed stated that they wanted their players to participate in other sports outside of football.  And, they want a dead period for themselves where they don’t have to focus on football and the associated responsibilities.

If the overbearing, snarling head man who demanded his way—or no way—was ever a reality, he appears to be non-existent today, or only alive in Hollywood movie scripts.  Not so much among the current crop of program leaders in the Lone Star state.

What’s at Stake

The future of high school football in Texas isn’t just about who wins on Friday nights—it’s about whether the sport can maintain its focus on developing young people while navigating external pressures. Coaches, for their part, seem to want to be able to be positive influences on their players.

They are worried about player safety, the widening gap between haves and have-nots, and the possibility that the game could lose its sense of purpose.

At the same time, they voiced strong hope that the core values of teamwork, discipline, and community won’t be drowned out. The anonymous format allowed them to say what many have been whispering: that the love of the game is still there, but so are the cracks in its foundation.

Why This Conversation Matters

Texas football has always been about more than the scoreboard. Communities rally around their teams because those teams represent identity, pride, and belonging. If coaches—the stewards of that tradition—are this concerned, it’s a signal we should pay attention.

Maybe the bigger question isn’t whether high school football will survive in Texas, but what version of it will remain. Will it be a sport that keeps developing kids and uniting towns, or will it become another battleground in the culture wars?

For once, coaches told us the truth. The challenge now is whether we’re willing to listen.