I’ve alluded to the fact that I’m speaking at a clinic in San Angelo this week. I wanted to expand a bit on the subject of my talk and why I’ll be there.

I’m one of six partners in Champions Search Firm. We’ve got some cool videos and we’ve even been referenced (indirectly) on si.com once, but we prefer to stay in the background (though that’s becoming harder and harder to do). Our mission is simple. We work with schools that have vacancies on their athletic staffs, though at this point I’ll admit the only positions we’ve helped fill are head coach and/or athletic director, though we have the bandwidth to help in much more than that. Soon, our website will provide a way for school districts to look for coaches, sorting them by their qualifications, experience level, or other criterion.

I know that coaching high school football may not seem glamorous or lucrative, and to some degree that’s true. However, salaries aren’t that bad after a few years, and the facilities and stadiums are very nice: two high school facilities (Galena Park ISD Stadium outside Houston and Eagles Stadium in Allen, outside Dallas) have hosted college football all-star games since 2007. Meanwhile, high school coaches here often use their careers as platforms into college and pro football. Fun fact: as recently as 1997, four of the hottest coaches in college football — Baylor head coach Art Briles, Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona State head coach Todd Graham and Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris — were coaching or playing Texas high school football. That same year, Jets Director of College Scouting Jeff Bauer was coaching high school football in the Houston area.

We’ve been fortunate to have helped schools hire more than 30 coaches in the last eight years, plus one college coach. Typically, we’re engaged by the school and we help them through the hiring process, conducting interviews and doing background checks, and then recommend a predetermined number of finalists. The school then picks the candidate it feels is the best fit.

We’ll have more on our firm and keep you posted on the clinic here later this week, so stay tuned.