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New Holmes football coach Morales ready for another challenge

For someone who didn't make coaching his career choice in college, new Holmes High School head football coach Juan Morales has done pretty well for himself in the profession.

New Holmes head football coach Juan Morales led Highlands to back-to-back 7-4 seasons the past two years before deciding to return to the Northside Independent School District. 

For someone who didn’t make coaching his career choice in college, new Holmes High School head football coach Juan Morales has done pretty well for himself in the profession.

Morales, 47, headed the football program at Highlands for the past two seasons before getting hired at Holmes on Thursday. He guided the Owls to 7-4 finishes both years, a marked improvement for a program that was mired in the throes of 15 consecutive losing seasons when he took the job.

Morales succeeds Eddie Salas, who coached the Huskies for four seasons before getting the head-coaching job last month at Harlan, which will open at the start of the 2017-18 school year. Harlan and Holmes are both in the Northside ISD, where Morales coached for 15 years before taking his first head-coaching job at Highlands in 2015.

“I feel like I’m coming back home. I’m coming back to Northside,” Morales said. “That’s where I’ve spent most of my career, so I consider myself a Northside guy more than anything else. I have a lot of friends in the Northside district.”

A 1988 Edgewood High School graduate, Morales earned a degree in biology at UTSA in December 1992. He worked as a lab technician at Scott International in San Antonio for a year before changing careers.

Morales started teaching at Wren Junior High in the Edgewood ISD in 1994, and went to Poteet High School the following year. He’s been a high school coach since then.

Morales was upbeat Friday after meeting with Holmes principal Ada Bohlken and his new players.

“I got a gist of the pulse of the school and how things are going,” Morales said of his meeting with Bohlken. “Really, get to know each other. I got a chance to meet the boys. I loved it. Loved hanging out with them. I got a chance to get in front of them and just introduce myself, and just let them know that this is going to be a place where we’re going to raise it one more bar from what they’ve done already.”

New Holmes football coach Juan Morales coached 15 years in the Northside ISD, 13 at Jay and two at Brennan, before landing his first head-coaching job at Highlands in 2015. 

The Huskies finished 5-5 in their last season under Salas, who went 9-31 at Holmes. The Huskies were winless in Salas's first two seasons, but improved to 4-6 in 2015 before getting to .500 last year.

“I’m always looking to do bigger things with kids,” Morales said. “With Holmes being a 6A school and being a bigger program, I’ll have a chance to have an impact on more kids. I think Holmes has a lot of potential. Coach Salas did some great things, especially this past year. I think I can do at Holmes what I did at Highlands, and that’s gonna make us even more competitive in the Northside district.”

Once a traditional power in San Antonio, Holmes hasn’t had a winning season or made the playoffs since finishing 10-2 in 2000 under coach David Sanchez. The Huskies reached the state semifinals and went 13-2 the previous year, Sanchez’s first at Holmes. The Huskies have advanced to the state semifinals three other times (1980, 1985, and 1992).

Highlands made the 5A playoffs in both of its seasons under Morales and won a district co-championship last year. It was the Owls’ first title since winning the district crown in 1999 under Ken Gray.

“My takeaway from my experience at Highlands will be the amount of teamwork that it takes to be successful,” Morales said. “It takes a village to raise a child, and that was very much true at Highlands. I had a really good coaching staff. The kids were great. They worked hard and bought into what we were trying to do. They’re my boys. They’re like my sons.

“We also got a lot of help from people all over the campus: clerks, teachers and the administration. It really took a whole effort. I just want to make sure I can take experience to Holmes with me. The system worked for us at Highlands, and I want to do the same at Holmes.”

Morales coached at Northside ISD schools Jay (2000-12) and Brennan (2013-14) before moving to Highlands. Brennan advanced to the 4A Division I state final in Morales’ first year at the school. He coached at Poteet for three football seasons (1995-97) and one each at Seguin (1998) and Kennedy (1999).

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