Coach Guy resigns, OISD to restructure Athletic Dept.
The Olney Independent School District will restructure its athletic department after Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Jody Guy announced his departure and the school board tapped Olney Elementary School Principal Gunter Rodriguez to head Olney athletics.
Mr. Rodriguez has served Olney schools for nearly two decades, as athletic director and football coach, classroom teacher, and principal of Olney Junior High School and Olney Elementary School. “I’m really excited to be back in this role,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “What brought me to Olney in 2004 was the opportunity to be a teacher-coach.”
Mr. Rodriguez served as the Cubs football team defensive coordinator and track coach while teaching social studies and heading the social studies department from 2004-2007, when he left Olney for another coaching opportunity. “The biggest mistake I ever made was leaving Olney,” he said.
Two years later, he returned to take over as athletic director and head football coach. He received his masters in educational leadership from Midwestern State University in the ensuing four years, and in 2014 became principal of Olney Junior High School, which had received an “improvement required” designation from the Texas Education Agency. “[That] was challenging. We built a great plan to get out of that situation. We executed that plan and we exploded out of that hole,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “We got a lot of honors from the state for academic achievement the next year. All credit to the staff.”
He then took over at the elementary school to raise its “B” grade to an “A” level commensurate with the other two campuses. “That is a work in progress,” he said.
OISD Superintendent Dr. Greg Roach and the OISD board decided to split the head football coach role from the athletic director’s job to give students and teams more stability. Mr. Rodriguez’s first tasks will be finding and recommending a new head football coach, a head volleyball coach, and a head baseball coach before the next school year begins, Dr. Roach said.
“The district has been fortunate and blessed to have acquired the high-quality athletic department staff that we have,” Dr. Roach said. “Caleb King provides an excellent example. He was hired last fall as assistant girls’ basketball coach and epitomizes this as he stepped in to assume the position of head volleyball and head baseball, in addition to his classroom duties, until those positions are filled.”
Mr. Rodriguez said he will use his connections to the coaching world and, if necessary, travel to recruit new coaches.
“I intend to be intentional and aggressive about those positions,” he said. “I literally am going to have to go to college fairs and do in person recruiting. We might have to hire somebody who is fresh out and pair them with somebody who is a veteran. What I would prefer … is to hire somebody who is established in the coaching work but statewide there is a deficiency.”
OISD Board President Jake Bailey said the school district is sad to lose Coach Guy but grateful to have Mr. Rodriguez to provide continuity for students and staff. “We obviously hate to see Coach Guy go and we think Coach Guy and his staff have a lot of good things going in the athletic department,” Mr. Bailey said. “We think we can maintain some level of stability and continuity by having Mr. Rodriguez become the athletic director, specifically because he has a lot of knowledge of the school, the students, the community, what the community desires … Coach Rodriguez is an excellent coach, and he’s a great leader. There is something to be said about a well-respected man in the community and in the school district to be leading our athletic program.”
Coach Guy said he has thought about leaving coaching but has not yet finalized his plans.
“Dr. Roach and I visited about this a couple of months ago and I expressed an interest in possibly getting out of coaching and what that might be and what that would look like,” he said. “During that process of talking about that with me and my family, we decided that we are ready for a new chapter in our lives … and so we are going to go and do something different. I don’t know what’s that going to be yet. I went ahead and resigned just because I knew that Olney needed to get their plan working, they didn’t need to wait on me to find a job later on down the road.”
Coach Guy thanked the community for its support during his five years at Olney ISD. His children are finishing up sixth grade, eighth grade, and junior year in high school at OISD this year. “The community has been super good to me and my family. We have enjoyed our time here immensely but it is just one of those things. We are ready for a change and we are excited about new opportunities in the future,” he said.
He described the reorganization with Mr. Rodriguez at its helm, to be “the best thing for the athletic department.”
“Olney is very fortunate to get somebody in that role who has been here a long time and is a pillar of the community and can bring some stability to the program,” he said.
“The kids know they will have some new coaches come into their lives but the guy who is running the ship is going to be someone who has been in their lives since they were in elementary for most of them.”