Port Isabel hires a familiar face as its new head football coach/athletic director

By BILLY WATSON
LFN

Port Isabel has found its new head football coach/athletic director, and it is a familiar face to the program and the Rio Grande Valley.

On May 13, the Point Isabel ISD Board of Trustees unanimously elected Tony Villarreal, who coached the Tarpons in the early 1990s.

“I’m very excited,” Villarreal said. “I’m very appreciative of the superintendent, and the principal, and the school board, and the community. This is a very, very special place with high expectations, and you have to respect the community and what they’ve accomplished over the years.”

The hire comes after last season’s head coach/AD Jason Strunk accepted a position at Manheim Township High School in Pennsylvania, which will allow him to be closer to his son, Mac, who will be running track at The Citadel in South Carolina.

Over his two-year tenure, Strunk led the Tarpons to a 7-13 record and made the playoffs each year, but lost in the first round each time. In 2018 the Tarps narrowly fell to West Oso 57-56 and this past season they fell to Sinton 50-30.

Villarreal is no stranger to RGV athletics. In addition to coaching at Port Isabel, the veteran coach has worked his way around with stops at his alma mater Brownsville Hanna, PSJA High, PSJA North, McAllen High and, most recently, Weslaco High. Villarreal was also inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.

With the coronavirus pandemic halting practices and summer activities, Villarreal will have to wait to meet his athletes in person, but he said he is excited for that day to come.

“Right now, you have to be a champion of change and adjustment,” he said.

“What you do today can be out the window tomorrow, so we don’t know. There’s a lot of uncertainty… We’re always on pins and needles, but we’re ready to adjust. We’d love to get started, but right now all you can do is teleconference and some limited stuff.”

While Villarreal’s passion for football is unquestionable, he fully understands that his athletes are students first and, therefore, he is a firm believer in getting students ready for life after high school.

“We want to get them ready for college,” he said. “We want them to take the ACT tests. I want them to make A’s and B’s. At the end of the day, we want to change the landscape of the Valley, and what I want from these young men and women in four years or five years is come back and be – have a degree – professionals. It just helps everybody, and if we can do that, then I’ll feel accomplished down the road.”