Football a Polarizing Topic in Schulenburg

A group of parents and fans of the Schulenburg Shorthorn football team are calling for the replacement of head coach Brandon Brown.

Those parents and fans presented letters of concern about the football program to the Schulenburg ISD board of trustees ahead of a board meeting on Monday night, Oct. 9. And that was after a blowout win against Bloomington on Oct. 6. They began circulating a petition around town about a month prior, calling for Brown’s replacement. The movement gained support after the Horns’ 27-10 loss three weeks ago against Schulenburg’s biggest rival, Weimar, who are led by former Schulenburg head coach David Husmann. Husmann won a pair of state titles coaching Schulenburg in the 1990s.

None of those fans or parents spoke during the public comment period at The board meeting last Monday, but a few people spoke in support of the head coach, including Shane Hollas, father of starting Shorthorn quarterback Jase Hollas.

“I think the football expectations are a bit unrealistic,” Hollas said.

Hollas himself was starting quarterback for the Shorthorns in 1987, when the team made it all the way to the semi-finals. That season was the beginning of a decade of football success in Schulenburg, which included two state titles in 1991 and 1992. Hollas went on to play college football with the Rice Owls.

In his speech, Hollas lauded the Horns’ success in basketball and volleyball. The boys basketball team went three rounds in the regional quarterfinals last year, finishing the season 27-9. The Lady Horn volleyball team has made the playoffs every year since 2009, including a state championship in 2015.

“In my professional opinion, we’ve got great kids who work hard, but we’re maybe not the most talented group in the state or even in our district,” Hollas said of the football program.

Hollas presented the trustees with a list of Schulenburg’s season records in football going back to the 1980s. Alongside each season he listed the number of athletes who went on to play college football. Hollas said the list showed that Schulenburg’s success in the past was due to the amount of college-level talent on those teams. 

“Back in the heyday, we had nine guys on one team that went on to play college football,” Hollas said. “In the last few years, we had one kid who furthered his career in football.”

Joe Santana, a member of the church that Brown’s family attends, also spoke in favor of the coach.

“Coach Brown is very interested in what (the team) can do for him on the football field, but he’s more interested in what he can do for them in life,” Santana said. 

Santana said he attended a meeting of the concerned parents two weeks ago. In that meeting, Santana said he was surprised by some of the concerns raised by the parents. According to Santana, some of those concerns included Brown disallowing his players from using profanity and that Brown was more interested in building character than winning ball games.

“I know Coach Brown and he wants to win as bad as anyone in this room, but complaining about building character in young people, I don’t understand that,” Santana said. “That should be something every parent is concerned with.”

Hollas said some of the parents complained about Brown censoring the music playlist during the team’s workouts.

“Has anybody seen the movie ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ with all the lewd and lascivious behavior that went on in that movie?” Hollas asked, referring to a film about the late-1980s rap group N.W.A. “I was a disciple of that group, but I’m still trying to figure out how all that profanity and nonsense helped me in life. Obviously it didn’t.”

None of the petition organizers would speak on the record, but their main complaint is Brown’s 14-21 record (6-12 in district) since his arrival in 2014.

Schulenburg got off to a slow start this season. The Shorthorns are now 2-3. Their district record stands at 1-1 after a blowout win over the perennially weak Bloomington two weeks ago and a blowout loss to perennial powerhouse East Bernard last Friday. The Horns’ 62-0 pummeling at home to East Bernard is their worst loss since the 1979 season, when Schulenburg fell 58-0 against Tidehaven.

In March, the Schulenburg school board voted 4-3 to extend Brown’s contract by one year. Brown is the highest-paid head coach and athletic director in Fayette County, with an annual salary of $82,048. His career record as head coach stands at 45-62, including three seasons at Jacksboro and four seasons at Clifton before coming to Schulenburg.

Brown arrived in Schulenburg in 2014 after the school board declined to renew the contract of former head football coach and athletic director Tommy Bludau. According to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine, Bludau ranks 39th for most wins by a head coach in Texas high school football history.

This article erroneously reported Brown's overall record as 35-62 when it originally appeared. The article has been corrected to reflect his accurate record, which was 45-62 at the time of this story.