With the official start of the 2024 football season, LISD’s athletic Department kicks into high gear for a year of competition and victories.
Luis Escamilla, who was unanimously approved as LISD’s new Athletic Director during a Board of Trustees meeting over the summer, has been preparing for a full calendar of sporting events. After serving as an assistant athletic director for six years, Escamilla was promoted to the Athletic Director position and has hit the ground running and is energizing the district’s athletic programs by elevating traditions.
Escamilla’s experience as a collegiate student-athlete led him to pursue a career in education and coaching. After serving in public education for 20 years, Escamilla has attained his dream job.
“When I was an undergraduate student, I remember walking back every night from the library. That was always a vision I had, to become an Athletic Director,” said Escamilla. “It was not an overnight process. I was very grateful to work in several school districts from to 2A to 6A and attend the athletic conferences in the spring and in the summer. Just meeting people and networking allowed me to grow in my profession and I think it has prepared me for this great opportunity.”
Escamilla’s commitment to excellence as a coach at Laredo ISD includes being the head cross country coach, head track and field coach, and defensive coordinator at J.W. Nixon High School. In 2019, Coach Escamilla moved to administration becoming LISD’s Assistant Athletic Director and moved up to Athletic Director this summer.
“Laredo ISD is Laredo’s flagship school district with many rich traditions. My goal as Athletic Director is to guide Laredo ISD athletics toward continued growth, school excellence, and to elevate the traditions for the athletic department through academics and athletics,” said Escamilla. “The vision here at LISD has always been to make sure that we support our post-secondary education, the workforce and the military. The platform that we have to provide this opportunity with our student athletes is incredible. But definitely one thing we want to do this year is just to elevate our traditions. We just want to get one percent better every day.”
Coach Escamilla will oversee high school and middle school football, cross country, and track and field and swimming. He will also be in charge of athletic coordinators and trainers, elementary sports, advertising/sponsorship, and budget.
Escamilla’s promotion to AD was the first of two major moves in LISD’s Athletic Department this summer. The second was the hiring of former CHS Girls Basketball Coach Mary Encinas as Assistant Athletic Director. While at Cigarroa, Encinas won three District Championships, four Bi-District Championships, three Area Championships and three Regional Quarterfinals appearances. Coach Encinas will oversee high school and middle school volleyball and basketball, tennis, and the programming for physical education. In addition, she will be responsible for middle school coordinators and assistant coaches, and assist with the budget process.
“I'm excited to be able to have this opportunity to serve our students and our coaches as an assistant athletic director,” said Encinas. It's something that I've been working towards for a few years now. So, I'm just excited for the opportunity.”
Completing the Athletic Department Administrative team is Rick Alaniz who has served as Assistant Athletic Director for the last two years. In his 34 years of education, Alaniz has coached at every level of secondary sports. He has held coaching positions at United Middle School, J.B. Alexander High School, LBJ High School, Cigarroa High School, and J.W. Nixon High School. Coach Alaniz is responsible for high school and middle school soccer, baseball, and softball, powerlifting, and golf. In addition, he will assist with assistant coordinators, operations, facilities, and the budget process.
“I'm excited to do our part in facilitating all our sports teams to reach all their goals,” said Alaniz. “I have had a lot of great mentors that taught me the importance of treating people and the kids right and doing things right. So, I will continue to lean on my experience and my relationships that I've built over years to elevate our programs.”
The three credit their past mentors including learning under the guidance of former AD Sylvia Barrera for their love for athletics and sports administration.
“There's some rich traditions and great mentors that we've had here at LISD,” said Escamilla “We have a long-term plan. We're not here for one or two years I don't think one or two years is enough time to elevate what we want to do our traditions here at LISD.”
Escamilla and his staff now want to build on the traditions set by their predecessors and are now implementing their own initiatives to set a solid foundation for the athletic program.
Their main goal is to increase student participation. One of the things they plan is to facilitate elevating traditions by increasing the number of participants. They plan to speak with students and parents and explain the benefits of athletics and what they have to offer.
“We are working on growing our participation at the Boys and Girls Clubs, our 4th and 5th grade levels, and our 6th grade levels,” said Coach Alaniz. “We just need to generate some enthusiasm for getting involved in extracurricular activities. Athletics is a great platform for students to build character, stay in school, and increase attendance. Athletics teaches you leadership and it builds character. There are a lot of intangibles athletics provides and we need to communicate that to our community. Even in loss you learn, so there's a big message in athletics and it benefits us all.”
One of the things the staff wants to do is find more ways to recruit and retain coaches. They are working on having a system in place to recruit and hire quality coaches that will buy into the traditions and that will fit into the very unique culture at LISD.
“We're just one big extended family no matter what campus you are at,” said Coach Alaniz. “So, when we think about hiring coaches, we think about coaches that will fit that kind of mold in terms of buying into the family here in LISD.”
They want to be able to offer the support as an athletic administration to ensure that they are offering assistance by facilitating conversations and checking in with the coaches to discuss their wants and needs. They also want to support the coaching staffs by building relationships and mentoring them.
“Once a week we have lunch with our coaches just to see how they're doing and how can we help and provide that support by going that extra mile with them,” said Escamilla. “We would like to find a curriculum for new coaches so they can stay in their profession and keep coaches here.”
The staff is excited about the next generation of coaches that are going to become head coaches within LISD and are ready to help them grow within the profession. Over the summer, Escamilla and his staff were busy recruiting new coaches for NHS boy’s baseball, girls’ basketball, and tennis, and CHS boys and girls basketball, volleyball, and Assistant Athletic Campus Coordinator.
Another goal they want to build on is community service. They want to continue with community service for all athletes. One initiative that started last year was the high school meet and greet. The three high school football teams go to elementary campuses and they meet and greet and help out with drop off and pick up at the elementary schools. Some of the community service that they do outside of school includes the Peanut Butter Bowl Challenge which is a statewide campaign in collaboration with high school football to help feed the less fortunate.
“Our athletic programs are part of the community,” said Escamilla. “Here at Laredo ISD our athletes want to pay it forward and give back to our community.”
They also want to continue to celebrate the student-athlete for their accomplishments and ensuring that all campuses are highlighting those students. The initiatives that are already in place to promote LISD student athletes include social media exposure, AAA Awards, and National Letter of Intent signing press conferences. The Athletic Department is working with campus coaches about networking and helping students with the many opportunities available for them to be able to move on to the collegiate level.
“As a district, LISD does a great job recognizing our student-athletes for their accomplishments. We are utilizing our Communications Department and social media platforms to recognize and highlight our student-athletes for the great things that they're doing around the district,” said Coach Encinas. “We plan to work with our coaches to pursue networking opportunities to help our students explore the post-graduation opportunities available to them. This will help us ensure that we're being proactive and helping all of our students continue their education and play at the next level if that's what they are interested in doing.”
This summer LISD had 14 student -athletes sign their National Letter of Intent to continue their academic and athletic careers at the next level. Press conferences were held and social media platforms were used to celebrate the student-athletes’ accomplishments.
“We also have to give credit to the community, like KGNS ‘s Ryan Bailey's and Ellie Bednarz with LMT. She's always running on stories on sports so the Ryan Baileys in the world that are out there are also providing the KGNS Player of the Week and Athlete of the Year. So those initiatives that the city is doing it's also helping not just LISD but UISD. So, the attention and how they're promoting student athletes is really helping our students here at LISD.”
Also, in place to celebrate the student-athlete is the district’s AAA Awards. Middle school and high school student-athletes get recognized for their attendance, attitude and A-Honor Roll.
Our numbers have grown every year in our middle and high school programs,” said Encinas “The AAA Awards gives student-athletes something to look forward to. They're getting awarded at the end of the year. So that's a great initiative that we have.”
In the long-term Coach Escamilla wants to explore facility upgrades so LISD can keep up with the other area school districts by providing better performance tools for our student athletes. The district recently invested close to $2 million in new turf that has been installed at various facilities throughout the district. Hellas Construction has installed new turf at Shirley Stadium, Memorial Middle School Field, Cigarroa High School Aranda Field practice facilities, Lamar Middle School field and East Martin Field.
“We want to thank our district leaders for supporting the upgrades made at Shirley field and Memorial,” said Escamilla. “The one project I really think that we need to take a deeper look into is Zachry Softball fields. I’m a big believer in Title IX and I hope that our girls get to experience the turf field just as our boys do with football and other sports.”
Every year the athletic department is always looking for upgrades that could be advantageous for our programs. “We did find some funds to improve our weights. So that has been added here at LISD,” said Escamilla. “We do need to have a plan of action with our weight rooms so this way we're not 10 years later finally acting on the plan.”
They are also working on increasing attendance and the game day experience They are going to improve the experience of the games for all fans by providing great customer service by welcoming the people in the community at all LISD sports facilities. They have a plan in place to recognize officials at certain games and are inviting elementary and middle schools and former coaches and alumni to the games to support the high school teams. And during player introduction varsity team members are highlighted by what elementary and middle school they attended. All these initiatives are bringing the fans to LISD athletic events
“LISD’s Shirley field is probably one of the you know the top five stadiums in this region and it's nice that we get the opportunity to highlight our facilities and invite the community in. I think if you turn on the lights and attract the community and have these initiatives it will start packing up Shirley Field and our other sports facilities,” said Alaniz. “I think bringing the community into our facilities creates a lot of excitement. You don't have to have a kid playing on the team to enjoy our facility and enjoy our hospitality.”
The Athletic Department is responsible for elementary, middle and high school athletic programs including football, volleyball, boys and girls cross country, basketball, soccer, track and field, powerlifting, swimming, golf, and tennis, softball, and baseball.
The LISD Athletic Department invites our parents and the community to come out and support our athletics programs. Tickets to all LISD athletic events can be purchased at GOFAN.com, just search for Laredo Independent School District.