Rhoads out after 4 years at Anderson
Coach moves to role with Austin district athletics office.
After four seasons as Anderson’s head football coach, Jeff Rhoads will leave behind the Trojans for a position in the Austin school district’s athletics office.
Rhoads, 50, said he spoke to his players about his departure on Wednesday afternoon.
“In my business you’ve got to produce on the field,” Rhoads said. “You have to put together some wins. If you don’t, things change and our place is no different.”
The Trojans posted an 11-30 record in Rhoads’ four seasons, and the 2017 team finished 1-9. His contract ran out after this past season. His new duties with the school district have not yet been specified, he said.
On Wednesday, Rhoads pointed to some improvements in the Trojans’ football program. When he became the school’s head football coach, he said, 29 players were part of the school’s freshman training period. This year, there were 43. Anderson also installed artificial turf on its campus field last season and added lights as a result of private funding.
Rhoads, who began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Texas Tech, has been a high school football coach for 27 years. Before coming to Anderson in 2014, he spent five seasons as the offensive coordinator at Westlake under Darren Allman.
Rhoads said reaching the playoffs in 2016 was perhaps his greatest memory from his time at Anderson. He added that he hopes to be a head coach again someday.
In other high school football news, LBJ principal Sheila Jackson said her school’s head coaching position has been advertised and interviews will begin in the near future. The Jaguars’ former head coach, Andrew Jackson, died in December after battling against esophageal cancer.
Todd Raymond, athletic director for the Pflugerville school district, said he will help organize interviews “in the next few weeks” regarding the vacant head coaching position at Pflugerville High. Raymond said he hopes to make a hire in early February to replace George Herrmann, who retired this past fall after 21 seasons.