By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Tino Villarreal is entering a new phase of his coaching career as athletic director at St. Joseph Academy.
Last July, Villarreal, 35, was promoted from first assistant and offensive coordinator to head football coach and now adds another title, which becomes official on Monday. He takes over for Ben Sandoval, an assistant coach on the football staff, who has served as interim AD since last summer.
“It seems that there has been a lot of support behind this decision since it was announced a few weeks ago,” said Villarreal, who also has coached soccer and guided the Bloodhounds to the TAPPS state semifinals during each of the past two seasons. “I graduated from this school in 1999 and I’ve coached here for 15 years on and off, and to be able to oversee the athletic department is definitely something very humbling, especially because of the support I’ve received since the news went out. The emails and phone calls I’ve gotten have been overwhelming.”
Before graduating in 1999, Villarreal played football on the Bloodhounds’ offensive line under late coach Elvis Hernandez, who the new AD says continues to be an important influence in his life. Hernandez died in February 2015 at age 53.
The Hernandez family was honored at a football game last season and the players wore decals in memory of the late coach on their helmets during the 2015 campaign.
“Elvis was a St. Joe graduate who returned to coach here, and our players didn’t know much about him, but now they do because of the stories I told them,” Villarreal said. “Elvis (who later coached at Santa Rosa and Progreso) always had a love and passion for St. Joe. I really feel those are shoes that I have to fill and it’s really what anchors me here.”
Villarreal has coached football at SJA’s junior high and high school levels since 1999 and became a full-time varsity assistant on the current coaching staff in 2009.
With Villarreal as head coach, the Bloodhounds went 8-3 last football season with a return to the TAPPS playoffs as the Bloodhounds were hosts of a postseason game at Canales Field for the first time in approximately 30 years.
The soccer team ended its season in February with an 18-6-1 record after reaching the state semifinals.
As AD, Villarreal said he will be stepping down as soccer coach so he can provide more attention to all of the school’s sports, particularly those taking place during the spring semester.
“Our students are very hungry for a state title in soccer, and we feel that we’re almost there,” he said. “My job is to find the right coach who can lead us to that goal. I’ve talked to our players (about becoming AD) and they’ve congratulated me. I think they trust me to find the right person who will propel us forward in soccer towards a state championship. I’d like to have that coaching position filled before the end of the school year.”
Villarreal, also a member of the National Hispanic Institute board and the Brownsville Community Improvement board, is intent upon promoting SJA athletics in the Rio Grande Valley and beyond.
“I think one of the main priorities here for us is to kind of put a flag up for St. Joe to let people know that we exist, that we’re around and that we’re competitive in our sports,” Villarreal said. “We have amazing student-athletes here, and I want to fight for us to be recognized. Because we’re a private school and none of our district opponents are here in the Valley, sometimes we kind of get lost in the cracks.
“For years we’ve had a phenomenal track program and our basketball teams also have been successful, and I think football and soccer are getting some recognition now, too,” he added. “But I’d like to see a lot more of St. Joe out there in the public. If it means hosting our own tournaments or inviting other teams on to our campus to play us, I’d like to see a lot more of that. It could bring us additional exposure to let more people know that we’re competitive here.”
Villarreal sees the coaching situation at SJA as a unique one since almost all of the coaches are past graduates of the school who are devoted to seeing the Bloodhounds prosper in athletics and everything else.
“The passion and love they bring to the school is a very personal one because we’re a very small-knit, close community,” Villarreal said. “We all treat each other as classmates, and there’s really no real gap from generation to generation. Once you’re an alum of this school, you just know who everyone is.
“Bringing people together like that (as coaches) and continuing to develop future Bloodhounds is something special that we cherish here at our school, particularly in athletics,” he added. “To me, it’s involving everyone in a team effort to push our programs forward together, whether it’s boys sports, girls sports or even middle-school sports.
“I feel we’re knocking on the door, and I would like us to knock on the door at all levels in both genders to be an athletic program on the rise, not just in a sport here and there. We have unfinished business here and I’m eager to undertake it.”
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess