The State Executive Committee of the University Interscholastic League suspended an assistant coach from Richland Springs for recruiting violations during an appeal hearing on Monday.
Richland Springs defensive coordinator Mike Watkins came before the committee to defend his actions, following a District Executive Committee determined he was guilty of violating UIL rules in a series of text messages with “an old friend” from Zephyr, who is the parent of a student athlete there.
According to testimony, Watkins and this friend had not spoken in a couple of years, and when the parent made contact to inquire about athletic questions, Watkins made disparaging remarks about the Zephyr coaching staff, before appearing to offer a job to the parent, and telling him about what Richland Springs could do for them.
According to testimony, Watkins texted: “That coaching staff at Zephyr is a joke.”
“That’s yours; you gotta own that, right? Motheral asked the coach, who owned-up to the remark.
Everyone in the room, including Watkins, agreed the statement was out of bounds.
“Coach, you need to listen to me for a few minutes,” Chairman Mike Motheral said. “Poor decision. Whether you recruited or not, for you to be talking to somebody, or texting with someone you haven’t talked to in a while, and you say ‘Hey, that coaching staff at Zephyr…’ — Oh, by the way; he’s got a kid that plays at Zephyr, and you’re at Richland Springs — and [you say] ‘That coaching staff is a joke.’?”
Motheral went over the rest of the text statements, pointing out that the exchange sure looked like recruiting, and then confronted him with the text message indicating they would have to handle things in a certain ending with a text that said: “don’t want it to look like recruiting.”
Watkins was questioned about the whole thing, and then had five minutes to convince the committee he was innocent.
Watkins spoke on his own behalf, and said he was just trying to help a kid out. He mentioned his involvement as a volunteer and his service in the Army.
Several former colleagues came to speak on his behalf, and were heard.
In the end, the committee issued a 2-year probation for Watkins beginning next year, suspended him participating in football for the rest of this year, and decided to forego further punishment, which it was agreed would needlessly harm the school.
The committee also found that Watkins’ actions were independent of Richland Springs ISD, which is just coming off of a recruiting-violation probation period from 2022.
