CHAPEL HILL, Texas — Chapel Hill ISD Head Coach and Athletic Director Jeff Riordan has been leading the Bulldogs athletic program for six years. He led the team to the state finals last season and they were state semifinalists in the last two years prior.
Although they've had success the last few years, things haven't always been that way.
"A lot of kids weren't excited about playing football. So we had to go in the halls and recruit kids to come out and play. So that first year was kind of a learning experience, a lot of growing pains, and then, and then COVID hit that spring. So we had to deal with COVID," Riordan said. "A bunch of highs and lows, but it's like we tell the kids all the time, you can't get too high with the highs, you can't get too low with the lows. You got to kind of try to stay in that middle realm of it."
Chapel Hill is adding a multipurpose activity center indoor facility on their campus set to be finished in May 2025. They also added new turf to the football field along with a new scoreboard.
"We're not going to miss a practice or a workout because of weather when we get the indoor and it just builds pride in your kids to have nice things," Riordan said. "They go to these other places and play games and see these nice things and wonder why they don't have them. Well, they're about to have them too."
Chapel Hill will face off against Carthage this Friday for their homecoming game. It's no secret that this'll be a tough battle between two well-respected programs. Carthage has nine state championships titles since 2010, but the Chapel Hill program is not intimidated by this stat.
"We like to tell our kids, they have us, we're on their schedule too, and we're circled on their schedule. Just like Kilgore and Carthage and Pine Tree and Gilmer and all the guys that we're having to play," Riordan said. "Carthage is a very, very good football team, and coach. (Scott) Surratt has won a lot of football games and a lot of state championships. I told some of our kids, 'we're not just going to show up and blow everybody out.' We have to get used to being in a dog fight."
Chapel Hill will host Carthage this Friday for a 7 p.m. kickoff.