Cleburne ISD names James Woodard as Jackets' new head football coach

May 23—After board approval Monday, Cleburne ISD has named Tomball Memorial Offensive Coordinator James Woodard as the new head coach of Yellow Jacket football and CISD boys athletic coordinator.

It is the first head coaching position for Woodard, 40, who comes from a family of coaches and has spent the last five years as Tomball Memorial's offensive coordinator, where he helped the Wildcats to a 36-18 record and guided offenses that rewrote the school record books.

Woodard said he applied for the position — which was left vacant for the first time in five years after Casey Walraven took the head football coach/athletic director position at Alvarado ISD — for a number of reasons and that he's excited to get to work in Cleburne.

"I am as fired up as you can possibly imagine," Woodard said. "And I think my wife [Liz] and son [Henry, 9] are even more fired up than I am. As a family, we are super excited and ready to get boots on the ground and start building relationships with coaches, kids and faculty and community members. We are ready to get this ball rolling.

"The No. 1 reason I was interested in Cleburne is my parents are retired educators and live on Lake Whitney so it puts us real close so they can see their grandson instead of the long drives to and from Houston. No. 2, the facilities, school and community were attractive to me. And No. 3, the guy I work for, [Tomball Head Football Coach] Sam Parker, is an alumni of CHS and he encouraged me to apply for the job as well."

Woodard has 15 years of coaching experience with eight of those coming as offensive coordinator. He has also coached at Whitney, Anderson-Shiro and Tomball High. And the coaching profession runs deep in his family.

"I come from a family of coaches," he said. "My dad [Wayne Woodard] is a retired head coach. One of my brothers, David, is athletic director and head football coach at West and my other brother, Matt, is athletic director and head football coach at Groveton. This is what we know how to do and this is what we love to do. I don't know how many sets of brothers where three of them are head coaches but there can't be too many of us.

"You know how you grow up and have your heroes? Well, I'm pretty sure with the way me and my brothers have taken the coaching path, you could say our dad is our hero. We all want to be like him and follow in his footsteps."

Woodard has experience coaching on the defensive side of the ball but has spent the past 11 years of his career coaching on offense.

"I've coached in all sorts of offensive systems from slot-t to wing-t to spread," he said. "Most of the time it's been a spread offense. More than likely that's what we'll continue to do in Cleburne. But we'll get in and evaluate kids and see what our personnel looks like and what their strengths are and we'll do what gives us the best chance to win on Friday nights."

In the 2020 season, Woodard coached Tomball Memorial's offense to an average of 56 points per game as the Wildcats went 11-1. Tomball Memorial had a down year in 2021 with a 2-8 record (33.3 points per game) but Woodard helped coach the Wildcats to the playoffs in three of the past five seasons, including a 10-win season in 2019.

Woodard describes himself as a "very energetic coach" who will celebrate with and show love to his players while constantly pushing a hard work ethic.

"I'm a guy that's going to celebrate every little thing we can possibly celebrate," he said. "We're going to have fun with our kids. We're going to absolutely love our kids and build relationships. We're going to have a lot of fun, but we're going to work hard. They're going to get coached extremely hard but they're going to get loved even harder. I'm one of those coaches you'll see running up and down the sidelines with our kids on Friday nights.

"My message to the kids is get ready to work really hard. We're going to work really hard all the way through the program but we're going to have a lot of fun doing it. I can't wait to get there and get started. I'm excited to meet everybody, get coaches hired, get the kids fired up. We're going to get right into it this summer, get off on the right foot and get the ball moving up and down the field this fall."

Woodard is well aware of the recent struggles Cleburne football has gone through in terms of on-field success, with no playoff wins since 1998 and only two playoff appearances in the past 19 years. But the Jackets' new leader said it's time for Cleburne football to get back to its winning ways.

"Cleburne, historically, knows how to win," Woodard said. "Cleburne knows how to win when you look at their football history. Different sports knows how to win, with baseball going three rounds this year. The city of Cleburne knows how to win. It's time to get football back on that track. We're going to do everything that we can to give our kids the best chance they have to be as successful as they can.

"It's going to start with building phenomenal kids and relationships with these kids: Teaching them how to respond to events that happen in their life; having a great, positive attitude; understanding we're going to grow men and women of character; and playing with great effort. If we do those things, the scoreboard will take care of itself. We're not only building them to win football games but we're building them to win in the game of life."

Woodard said those four values are what he plans to build Cleburne football on.

"Teach them how to Respond to events that happen in their life, teach them to have a great Attitude, teach them how to be men of Character, and teach them to have and play with great Effort — it spells 'RACE' — and we're going to go win the race," he said.

Woodard graduated from Sam Houston State University with a bachelor's degree in 2008 and then earned his Master's Degree in Sports Management from Texas A&M in 2017.

"I got a little Bearcat in me and a little Aggie in me," he said. "... I went to high school in Lometa, Texas. When I was in high school, we were 1A and you still played 11-man in 1A back then. We were one of the smallest 11-man teams in the state."