WACO, Texas — It was a big day at Midway High School as they have named former TCU Defensive Coordinator (DC) Joseph Gillespie as its new head football coach.
After a 2023 season full of adversity and coaching changes, a new face joins the Midway sidelines ... 60 applicants and rounds of interviews later.
"You know, when the opportunity came, I just knew that with the type of kids and the type of administration and then with the area and the community and all of the support.
This was a no brainer," Gillespie said.
The former TCU DC led the Horned Frogs defense for two seasons, including one that ended in a National Championship run. However, Gillespie was dismissed after the 2023 season.
Before his time at TCU, Gillespie served as a linebackers coach at Tulsa where he was eventually promoted to DC in 2019.
But, he's a veteran at the high school level.
"I've been doing this 30 years. My career was in Texas high school football. 20 of those 21 years were spent in one place," Gillespie said. "And this feels like one of those places ... When I was at Stephenville, unfortunately, Midway was in our district there for a brief period. Stephenville went 0-2, so if you can't beat em, join em."
Gillespie always knew he would find his way back to Friday nights under the lights.
"It's a great opportunity for me and my wife to poor into these young kids and in the mean time we're going to go out and win as many games as we can."
One of the big reasons for the Panther's success this year was interim head coach Esrom Martinez taking over mid-season.
"Those young men had gone through a lot" Gillespie said. "To go through some of the stuff that they went through in mid season and then go through the ups and downs, and then getting beat out in a very tough ball game in round one. And so there's been a roller coaster of emotions for those young men."
Gillespie sees the impact Esrom continues to make.
"Esrom reached out to me very early and sat there and said, 'Coach, I would love to be a part of this program. Still, I love these kids,' and his loyalty runs extremely deep to this program and to those kids," Gillespie said.
Midway is full of athletes ready to work, and Gillespie bought in on day one.
It all started with 16 push ups for the 16 wins it takes to bring home a state title.
"Now they've got some direction, there's some some solidness to it and there's some clarity and peace at the end of it," Gillespie said. "There is still gonna be changes that are gonna happen and I talked to them about that today. So, don't sit there and take a deep breath just yet, just know that we've got direction where we're going."
After the departure of Chad President from the program making the move to Temple High School, coach is looking to fill that offensive coordinator role as well as bringing in a new defensive coordinator.
Midway was able to claim a district title after starting the 2023 season 0-4 and losing their head coach halfway through the season.
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