A happy homecoming in Fort Stockton

FORT STOCKTON One of the first things Rex Whitfield was asked in his interview for Fort Stockton’s head football coaching position was whether he had a question for those on the other side of the table.

He had two.

How important is football in Fort Stockton and how important is it to win the program’s first playoff game?

They said both were important, along with all the other sports at the Class 3A school.

Whitfield said he knew of the school’s success in other sports. But again he asked.

How important is this? How important is the first-ever playoff win?

They said they’d like to see it happen.

Now they were getting somewhere.

“Well, that’s what I’d like to do,” Whitfield said.

Not far from Panther Stadium, Whitfield used to hunt. It is now paved over by Interstate 10.

At Fort Stockton High, Whitfield used to roam the halls. He now has his own office.

Those Panthers uniforms? He used to wear them, the blue helmet and all. He now rocks a cap and a whistle.
In 1974, Whitfield graduated from Fort Stockton, where he was born. In 1978, he began his first in a string of many assistant coaching jobs.

On June 8, Whitfield finally became a head coach, one year after “retiring” from coaching and working for an insurance company.

He is back home now.

“If ya’ll are familiar with the Comanche Springs swimming pool, just to the west of that is an old, abandoned building that used to be the Texas A&M Agriculture Extension (Service),” Whitfield said. “Well, that was the Pecos County Memorial Hospital. That’s where I was born.”

When he decided to return to coaching, he wanted to find a quality job; it didn’t have to be close to his hometown or a head coaching job.

But when the Fort Stockton opportunity came, he pounced on it, with much approval from his family.

Moving home was a bonus, they said. What they really wanted was for him to continue his passion.

“My wife wanted me to keep coaching,” Whitfield said. “She said, ‘You can only do one thing. You can’t do anything else.’ ”

He went into the interview like he had all interviews for a head coaching job before. He was prepared, with a resume that grew lengthier with every season, with every stop across the state, with almost every assistant position possible on a staff. 

Idalou. Seminole. McCamey. Texas Tech. Sweetwater. Slaton. Colorado City. Lubbock Estacado.

Coached the secondary, receivers and offensive line. Coordinated the offense and defense.

He just never got the ultimate promotion.

“I’ve applied for jobs in the past, come in second a bunch,” Whitfield said. “But Fort Stockton was the first place to give me a chance.”

Whitfield has this demeanor about him on the practice field. He is in control of practices. He is the loudest. He gives orders and takes players aside for gentle coach-to-helmet ear hole chats.

It looks like he’s done this before, even though he hasn’t.

“He’s always had the confidence,” said Panthers receivers coach Vic Ivy, who was an assistant coach along with Whitfield at Idalou and Sweetwater. “He’s just never really had the title.”

So Whitfield already knows how stuff should work. He knows how efficient a practice or a play or a spread offense should be.

What he is experiencing now are the things he never really had to deal with before.

“My job,” Whitfield said, “is about 25 percent football and 75 percent signing papers and making sure things are where they’re supposed to be and listening to this complaint.”

So far, his tenure has been brief and successful, if player reviews and the summer portion of the offseason are to be used as measuring sticks.

“He’s really positive and a great motivator,” senior quarterback D.J. Galvan said. “He’s a good coach. He’s got a lot under control. He’s a hometown coach coming back to coach us.”

Throughout his career, Whitfield has been able to stay on the sidelines, revel in the victories and not take the heat for losses.

What Whitfield hasn’t experienced is being the one most look at as the reason for a team’s success and failure.
That appears to be fine with him.

One approach he is already applying takes some heat off him, in fact.

Because just like he was a significant part of winning teams that needed the services of others besides the head coach, Whitfield needs to be able to rely on others.

He says he has good people working around him. The administration is supportive. The community is energetic.
The players? Well, those are all his now. And, in the end, he needs to be able to trust them in his first year at the helm just as much as they need to trust him.

 “It’s what they make of it,” Whitfield said. “I can get up and rant and rave and holler and scream, but it’s your senior year. It’s your one chance. And it’s your guys’ job to help pace the offense and defense, calling kids on the phone that might have missed a workout.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and they get one chance. I like what I see out there.”