UIL: Westwood Panthers won’t have to forfeit after video incident

PALESTINE, Texas ( KETK ) — Westwood ISD will not have to forfeit any of their games, following a UIL committee decision.

On Monday, the District Executive Committee identified a rules violation and made a formal recommendation to the UIL State Executive Committee to suspend Coach Richard Bishop for the rest of the regular football season and any post-season plays.

This comes after allegations that Bishop allegedly carried out a plan to record their opponents signals, a plan that the DEC allegedly said was “intentional, serious and egregious.”

Donald McCoy, an IT employee at Westwood High School, testified on Thursday that he had been at the Fairfield vs Teague game and had recorded videos for his long distance girlfriend in Virginia.

“I had started recording in the first quarter, but want to make it clear I didn’t record everything. It is at that point in time I got the idea ‘I’m going to show her what this is about,” McCoy said.

Mike Motheral, a UIL State Executive Committee member, asked McCoy if he had recorded coaches on the sidelines.

“No sir, not intentionally, not specifically,” McCoy said.

Turning to Bishop, Motheral asked if he had changed their game night from Friday to Thursday, which Bishop said yes, the decision was made in Spring due to official shortage, however he did not notify other district members.

“There’s an advantage, if you’re open on Friday you get to go scout, but if you let them know, they have the opportunity to do the same,” Motheral explained.

Bishop claimed he was not aware that McCoy had been recording.

“That’s really hard for me to believe,” Motheral said. “I don’t know you, and I trust that you’re going to be up front and honest, but if I’m sitting with someone for a full half and they’re videoing, it’s hard for me to not notice that.”

Bishop said at no point did he feel he had jeopardized the profession nor the game in any way.

“I’ve been in this profession 17 years, and I’ve tried to uphold the standards and ethics of this profession and respect what y’all do, respect the THSCA does,” Bishop said. “Athletics has been part of my entire life. I’ve been head coach here for seven years, never had any issues regarding any type of nature of these things. We took over a program that was extremely down and I think we’ve done it the right way through character development, mentorship, servant leadership, all those things.”

However, Fairfield coaches at the press box during the game said in the second quarter of the game they reportedly noticed McCoy recording the plays and zooming in and out at their coaches’ hand gestures.

“When I noticed it, it originally was just him filming the play. But as I paid attention closer, there was a time where the play ended, he had stopped the recording, and the next play was about to begin he picked it up and it looked as though his thumbs were zooming into our coaches, and I could see on the camera the picture getting, I guess closer to the action,” a Fairfield HS Coaching staff member said. “You could tell he was zooming in. As we got done signaling, it seemed as though he had zoomed back out and moved his camera over to watch the play.”

Motheral asked if the superintendent would do some training so this doesn’t happen again.

“Yes sir, some training and it would extend further than our coaches, because obviously we have a problem that reaches outside the athletic department, so as superintendent I have failed to ensure we have the proper training on the UIL rules and constitution,” Superintendent Wade Stanford said.

Before a final decision was handed down, Stanford gave an emotional plea to the committee.

“We also value standards, and those standards are high,” Stanford said. “We’ve had adults that have missed that standard, and ultimately, I’ve missed that standard as the leader of the district. But the ones that haven’t are kids. And that’s not just our football team, that’s our band, our cheerleaders, our drill, our other support groups, our student body. And the others who have upheld that standard are the community and they’ve worked hard at that.”

The committee ultimately voted to remove Bishop from the regular season, post season games and will remain in probation for the 2025-2026 school year. However the UIL committee said Bishop can participate in football activities next year. For McCoy, the committee ruled to suspend him from all UIL activities for the 2024-2025 school year.

Though some of the committee members thought a number of, but not all, games should be forfeited, it was voted not to forfeit any games which would allow the players to continue Friday night’s game against Teague.

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