For only the second time in its history, the Lehman High athletics program will begin searching for its next leader.
On Thursday, the Pflugerville ISD board of trustees approved Todd Raymond as that district’s next athletic director.
Raymond is the current head football coach and athletic coordinator at Lehman High and was hired in 2012 to helm Lobo athletics after former head coach Steve Davis resigned.
Following approval by the PISD board, the next step is to begin the process of completing paperwork, which is expected to take place next week, Raymond said.
After all of the official processes are complete, both within Hays CISD and Pflugerville ISD, the process toward transition will follow.
As the Pflugerville ISD athletic director, Raymond said he would be focusing on the administrative component of the position and will not have coaching duties.
Raymond said he became interested in the new position at Pflugerville as it is a “big career jump.”
He said he interviewed for the Pflugerville position when it came around, “took a shot at it and got lucky.”
But another factor for the move was the ability to watch his children, who are both athletes within Hays CISD, as a parent and not as an athletic coordinator or coach.
“Every time I watch them, I’m always in the role of the athletic coordinator or the coach in my son’s case,” Raymond said. “Hopefully, it takes some of the stress off of them too.”
Raymond said he began notifying his coaching staff and his football team first thing Friday morning following approval from the PISD board. The reason was to try and ensure they “heard it from me first,” Raymond said.
Coaches were told at 7:45 a.m. Friday during a staff meeting, with players notified roughly 30 minutes afterward. Informing the players of his depature was “tough,” Raymond said, as he was close to many of them.
“It’s hard. It’s always really hard. I’m an emotional person, so it’s easy for me to get choked up as a person,” Raymond said. “But they understood, for the most part. They were confused at first, but they knew it was a move up in the career ladder.”
Raymond’s focus now extends to heading up to Pflugerville and to “figure out what needs to be done.” He will not be involved in the search for the next Lobo head football coach and athletic coordinator.
Raymond said his new job is expected to be a “different kind of stressful.” Raymond will oversee four high school campuses as the PISD athletic director, as well as the opening of a new football stadium next fall.
“The big part for me is that it’s really hard right now with the responsibilities of all the middle school and high school campuses here and as a football coach,” Raymond said. “The ability to just focus on the administrative side and take things I’ve been doing here and take it up there is a good thing.”
He said many of the campuses in Pflugerville are set up similarly to those in Hays CISD, where there is an athelic coordinator in place. Having coached in that area, Raymond said he is familiar with many coaches.
Raymond said he was ultimately proud of what he had accomplished at Lehman, which included seeing numbers increase in athletics and improvements in facilities. He also cited the transition from a small 4A school to a large 6A program in “one of the toughest districts in the state.”
No timetable has been set by the district to begin looking for the next Lehman athletic coordinator/head football coach.
