The SouthSide Honey Badgers are a team built on grit and determination; playing or performing despite city politics, socio-economic stereotypes, and having opportunities stripped from them before knowing they even existed. Coach Green and Coach Mueller are no strangers to the challenges coaching a team from an area of the city where nothing ever seems to come easy. You'd never know the adversities they fought and continue to fight on the sidelines.
On the field that day, the only thing brighter than the sun was the smiles on all the young athlete’s faces. They were a part of something bigger than themselves, and they knew the person standing next to them, whether on the offensive line or the front row of a cheer line-up. These kids and their coaches meant something to each other. They were, they are, a family. And the journey to make it to Longview Park had been a long and arduous one. Adversity is no stranger to Coach Green or Coach Mueller.
After investing just over eight years in another football organization, both Coach Green and Coach Mueller decided to branch out on their own, even after being scouted and sought out by others who recognized their talents as coaches and qualities found only in true leaders. Their ideas, training methods, strategies were deemed “too cutting edge” for the team they were formally coaching. Knowing they could face a similar predicament if they went with another organization, they chose to hold steady to their values, state-of the art training, and coaching techniques.
Coach Green and Coach Mueller did what all renegades with a vision do; they ventured out on their own and founded The SouthSide Honey Badgers Football Team – as part of a Texas Select Nationwide Football Organization. Trailblazers, pioneers, visionaries; they are all of these things, but to their players, they are known as “Coach Green” and “Coach Mueller.”
Enter, “Coach T,” as everyone refers to her. That’s right! I said, HER! Another trailblazer, solid and confident in her knowledge of the sport, passes that on to the players just by being present. She’s electric. Coach T, one of the very few young ladies to play for a boy’s football team in the state of Texas both in middle school and high school, and then went on to play for the women's semi-pro team, The Yellow Jackets until an ankle injury sidelined her career. Head Coach for athletes eight and under, these young athletes are being trained by the best of the best at an early age.
Now I’m not the best at rounding up numbers, but I can tell you with absolute certainty, the Southside Honey Badger’s team would only be a “fraction of the team” without Coach Ryan. A football coach and high school math teacher at San Jose Catholic School adds, even more, value to the team. Literally. He is launching a tutoring website dedicated to the athletes on his team. They log in, ask for help, and Coach Ryan either assists them with their math questions or passes any other inquiry along to the right person in any other educational field unrelated to math. Talk about well-rounded.
The SouthSide Honey Badgers are having the groundwork laid out before them, but it’s proven to be hard work for the coaches in many areas.
Most the athletes attend lower income schools; Odom, St. Elmo, Boon, and Couceiro Elementary to name a few, and Bedichek, Covington, Baily and Paredes Middle Schools.
Coach Green and Coach Mueller were suspended for an entire year from coaching for offering free football camps for low-income athletes. That set the stage for the comeback of the century, after a few too many setbacks. You will never hear any of the coaches complain. They seek out creative strategies around the setbacks and teach their athletes how to jump life’s preverbal hurdles even if it’s football they are playing, by setting the example of keeping your head in the game, your chin up, and looking at the big picture.
Coaches Green and Mueller offer payment plans for already low registration fees for both football and cheerleader camps. The truth is, these men, their knowledge, and what they offer both on and the field is priceless.
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