More than results: Two Coastal Bend coaches land on coveted list

Two Coastal Bend high school football coaches are getting recognition for the progress they've made early in their careers.

Dave Campbell's Texas Football is the top authority in all things high school and college football in Texas. They release an annual magazine each summer in anticipation of football season. In that magazine is a coveted list of 40 coaches under 40-years-old.

On that list this year are Ingleside's Travis Chrisman and H.M. King's Ruben Garcia.

“It’s something that’s been a personal goal of mine for a couple years now. Being my first year back as being a head coach again especially after the season we had, our kids performed at such a high level,” Chrisman said.

“It was an honor, excitement, very thankful very grateful, very blessed and I’m just thankful for all the support I've had from my family, friends, coaching buddies, mentors, administration, community, players," Garcia said.

Both coaches completed their first season at their respective schools and have extensive coaching history.

Chrisman began coaching junior high school at Wimberly Independent School District. He then coached the secondary at Marble Falls High School. After that, he became the offensive coordinator for New Diana High school. After two years he assumed the role of head coach. Chrisman went back to being an offensive coordinator for Boerne before becoming the athletic director and head coach at Ingleside High School.

Garcia began his coaching career as the offensive line coach at Crosby High School. He then joined Justen Evans staff at Corpus Christi Miller High School as the offensive coordinator. That propelled him to athletic director and head coach at Falfurrias High School. Garcia then assumed the same position with H.M. King High School in Kingsville.

They both have had success and said they couldn’t do it on their own.

"I could not do this by myself. We have an awesome staff here at Ingleside that allows me to be really great at what we do and they're able to work off of that," Chrisman said.

Their formula? A good support staff and the relationships with the student-athletes.

“We can’t coach hard if we don’t have a relationship with them. We pour ourselves into our kids and building those positive relationships and we demand a lot of them. And so, but they know too, if we’re getting on them, that we love them,” Chrisman said.

“The relationships with kids is always going to be the foundation of my program," Garcia said. "We are going to hold them accountable because we have our standard, the gold standard. We’re always going to have our standard, but we’re going to help them rise to our standard, but we’re also going to love them up and care about them. Treat them like human beings and have that respect level and actually get to know them invest in them, their lives what’s going on. You can tell if a kid’s having an off day, a bad day and finding out why, what’s going on? Maybe you can help."

Coaching is Chrisman and Garcia’s lives. It’s a lot of dedication and sacrifice. They said they do it because they had great coaches growing up who taught them more than just football. Now they want to be that coach to their guys.

“With what we do X’s and O’s wise is great, but if we can be there for them as a mentor and as someone to look up to, to do things the right way, help in the household in terms of raising them then that’s our number one priority,” Chrisman said.

“I love hearing from all my old players or old students. They still reach out to me all the time telling me things that’s going on in their lives and just memories. Just telling me they care about me, love me and I tell them I love them too. Things like that, that’s the most rewarding part of this profession,” Garcia said.

As both coaches head into their second year at their respective schools, they know the expectations are high and they're loving the challenge.

In 2023, Ingleside finished 11-2 in 4A-Division 2, with a run to the third round of the playoffs. Their first loss came in the last week of the season to rival Sinton High School. Not to mention touting wide receiver J.C. Smith who tied the national record for receiving touchdowns in a season.

H.M. King finished 2023 with a 3-7 record in 4A-Division 1 but lost four one-score games that could have shifted the season. Garcia was proud of the team for buying into his teachings because the same roster from the previous season showed much improvement. King will move into 4A-Division 2 this upcoming season.

King begins their season on the road against San Antonio Brackenridge on Aug. 29 while Ingleside hosts La Feria on Aug. 30.

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