By Kevin Lonnquist
NTX Varsity Sports Columnist
The best plan can look good on paper. All is in the details. Everything has been accounted for. It deserves a chef’s kiss.
And then that plan can feel like a waste of time when the unexpected happens.
There might be some liberty taken when it comes to Eagle Mountain High School’s journey. However, this young school of only two years is on the express track of growth.
It is so rapid that in only two years, it has moved from a Class 4A institution with 863 students to a 5A school housing 1,315. That’s a jump of 452 students.
On Aug. 1, Eagle Mountain officially becomes a Class 5A Division II school. Volleyball will start first on that day. Football opens fall workouts Aug. 3.
So much, so fast. The news came as somewhat of a shock when the UIL announced its classification cutoff numbers this past December. The 5A Division II floor was 1,305. Eagle Mountain snuck in by 10 students.
“Demographers actually had us staying in 4A for this realignment and possibly one more,’’ head football coach and athletic coordinator Jeremy Mullins said.
This new world will present challenges. From the Feb. 1 realignment announcement, District 3-4A in football will feature state power Argyle, always competitive Colleyville Heritage, Grapevine, The Colony, pretty solid Lucas Lovejoy and another school moving up to 5A in Nevada Community. Eagle Mountain will be the smallest school in this district.
For the other sports, Eagle Mountain is in 5-5A with Azle, Argyle, Saginaw Chisholm Trail, Saginaw High, Keller Fossil Ridge and Brewer out of White Settlement.
However, if you’ve ever seen where Eagle Mountain is located – chances are you haven’t – you could understand why the accelerated move occurred. It’s an untapped area that is ready to burst. Don’t be surprised if Eagle Mountain becomes a 6A school within a decade.
Once the jolt of the move subsided, Eagle Mountain officials had the time to catch their breath and start preparing for life in this new era of competition.
Factor in students moving in between the first and second year of its existence, and Eagle Mountain showed that it could hold its own. This school did not take the traditional path most new schools do starting at the junior varsity level and then transitioning to the varsity. It began that first year in 2024-25 competing as a varsity program.
“Many people open schools on an odd year (second year of realignment) and play that junior varsity or outlaw varsity schedule,’’ Mullins said. “I think opening a new school is challenging no matter which way you do it. Having a year to build might be ideal, but we took what we had and hit the ground running.’’
They did. By the second year, Eagle Mountain volleyball won the Class 4A Division II state championship with a roster that was already beating some 6A programs. Football advanced to the area round. Boys basketball qualified for the playoffs. Baseball and softball also played into the area postseason round.
Now, the question between the news and the transition was being as prepared as possible. Sometimes, there is no formula. Schools just have to go through the ebbs and flows. Eagle Mountain is going to find that out soon enough.
“We really didn’t do anything drastic,’’ Mullin said. “Many of our other sports have competed against larger classifications over the last couple of years. So, that helps. Football wise, we could have done spring ball but chose not to. We just didn’t have the staff in place yet to feel good about getting the most out of it.’’
The other element in play that will need adjusting is simply the size of the athletes. Given the access athletes have to third-party training outside of school because they are in larger population centers or the variety of training apparatuses that are on school grounds, athletes likely will be bigger.
Mullins admitted that his school may not win many eye tests on both sides of the line of scrimmage this year. There is also the natural mental hurdle of competing week after week. Depth and the wear of the district season will be factors.
It’s easy to make assumptions about how a new school will perform in its first year in a new classification. The default thinking is that it will struggle. Competitors never subscribe to that.
But as we know, sometimes the kind of athletes and the number of years they’ve played together learning the system can overcome disadvantages.
Of all the schools making the move in the NTX Varsity Sports coverage area that includes Aledo and Mildred, Eagle Mountain’s is the most intriguing because of the newness of the school and its sudden rise.
“Can you compete in that league,’’ Mullins said. “Luckily for us, everything we’ve done has been new or a first. This is just another step in that journey.”
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NEWS: With the sudden late departure of head volleyball coach Catherine Foerster to another state power in La Vernia in late May, Eagle Mountain recently promoted assistant Hannah Seguin as the new head coach. Seguin has been an assistant coach for the program for its first two years. She’s also a native of the area.