It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this site (most of the blogging since high school football ended is done on themonitor.com except for my mistakenly posting a Vipers vs. Idaho blog here) but there’s been some news in the high school football ranks of late. Let’s get to the district I know:
District 31-5A activity
I cover District 31-5A for The Monitor and have seen some surprising shake ups. Since the end of the season, Edinburg High’s Joey Caceres lost the interim tag and became the Bobcats’ full-time head coach; Joe Sanchez left PSJA Memorial to become the athletic director for the Mission CISD (although my sources tell me he was reassigned at Memorial before Mission threw him a life raft); and PSJA North’s Orlando Garcia became the new AD for the PSJA ISD, replacing interim AD Richard Flores.
>> The Caceres move wasn’t popular with some in the Edinburg community since he was 0-10 last season. Even though I’m not a part of that community, I don’t have a problem with giving him another chance at the job. He took over during a difficult time for everyone associated with the program. Another bad season though and he’ll probably be looking for work elsewhere.
>> Sanchez’s move to Mission was little more than a blip on the radar screen to most, except for a fired-up group of Mission dissenters that are questioning Sanchez’s hiring. I don’t know if it was that PSJA Memorial was overmatched in its two years as a Class 5A school (1-13 in District 31-5A games) but something was missing. I do remember covering their games and seeing a lot of penalties and failure to execute at the end of close games. Take that for what you will.
>> Garcia’s move to PSJA ISD AD has generated a few comments on the story I linked to earlier in this posting. I pretty much knew the entire football season the AD job was going to come down to Garcia and PSJA High coach Mel Rios. I thought that with Rios’ many years of experience he would have the edge, but I’d also heard from various people that Garcia was well-connected in the district’s political hierarchy and thus had the advantage. In any case, Garcia got the job and now PSJA North and PSJA Memorial are searching for new head coaches.
Good job Peter
After what McHi Lady Bulldogs fans might say was a slow start Peter Rasmussen, the girls basketball beat reporter for The Monitor, has been doing an excellent job.
I always see Peter in the office, working a ton of hours (I know this because I’m continually fixing missed punches on his time card — that’s one of my duties of an assistant sports editor) to get his girls basketball coverage top notch.
Peter’s even getting more active on his blog and, along with boys basketball reporter Jason McDaniel, does an amazing job putting together the high school basketball page that appears every Thursday in The Monitor.
Kudos to Peter for a job well done.
