By a vote of 4-3 Monday night, the Brownwood ISD Board of Trustees voted against extending the contract of head football coach Sammy Burnett.
Trustee Codie Smith moved to not extend Burnett’s contract and Trustee Amary Doremus seconded the motion. Trustees Justin Posey and Roderick Jones also voted against the extension, while Trustees Diane Thompson, Tim Wilson and Board President Michael Cloy voted in favor of extending Burnett’s contract.
In seven seasons as head coach at his alma mater, Burnett has led the Lions to a 51-31 record with seven postseason appearances, two district championships and a trip to the regional championship game in 2023. Over his career, Burnett is 109-63 as a head football coach.
Burnett’s contract is up at the end of the 2025-26 school year. He has not served in his former capacity as athletic director since early January.
Burnett said in a phone interview late Monday night, “I appreciate the opportunity the administration’s given me. It was a dream come true to coach in my hometown, a place that has given me so much. My only goal was to give back to this program what it gave me. I know that was accomplished because of the outpouring of support I’ve received from the players currently in the program. The relationships I have with them I don’t need to share with anybody. But I’m humbled and honored to hear what those kids have to say. I also want to thank my coaches who have reached out to me and thanked me for my support of them and what I’ve taught them and the relationships we have. Even coaches I worked with in the past here have reached out. But my goal is to raise young men, not to win state championships. I answer to God, and God has a plan and I’m so humble and thankful for the opportunity.”
More than 100 people were in attendance within the walls of the BISD Administration building, including members of the 2024 Lions football team. The conference room was packed beyond capacity as an overflow crowd watched the proceedings via livestream in another area of the facility.
Smith, who made the motion to not extend Burnett’s contract, stated via text message to BrownwoodNews.com late Monday night, “I spoke with many parents of current and former players and there was a clear consensus that it was time to make a change. As a Brownwood Lion I only want the best for our students and our student-athletes.”
Doremus, who second the motion to not extend Burnett’s contract, told BrownwoodNews.com, “I know for me just being a parent of a child that is just starting the athletic program, there’s nothing I don’t do or agree with that I don’t see with my own eyes. Being a Brownwood alum and coming into this program I had really high expectations. Just from what I’m seeing, I think Sammy’s an amazing person, I think he’s a great guy, I think he does so much for those boys and is such a good leader in the way he speaks to them and what he does. But when it comes to coaching, it’s been talked about within the community and with parents of kids who are in the school, we’re living it day to day. Once again I think Sammy is great and I have a lot of respect for him and what he’s done. If it wasn’t for him there’s a lot of the bond stuff that many not have passed so I give him huge credit for that.”
Cloy, the Board president who was in favor of extending Burnett’s contract, told BrownwoodNews.com, “We made the decision to split the athletic director from the football coach for a really good reason. I think management of multiple sports is a difficult job and hard to saddle an individual coach with. Football probably gets the most attention, therefore it would be hard I think for any head football coach to be an effective athletic director. With that being said, going forward I was happy with that decision and I was happy that Coach Burnett was going to remain our head football coach. I still think he’s deserving of the job, but I must support my other Board members. Serving on a Board is a seven-person decision, I don’t want to be a negative descenter. I really was hoping it would go the other way. I knew it wouldn’t be 7-0 either way, and it’s just an indication of how things work in American towns in politics. There’s always going to be people who like a person and don’t like a person. I think Coach Burnett’s done us a good job. Could he do better? Sure, everyone could. I could do better at what I do everyday. I’m sad for him that he’s not going to be the head football coach, but now we have to start the job of finding us another one.”
Six people addressed the Board prior to the vote. Four were in pro-Burnett – current Brownwood Lion assistant coach Bryan Clark, Draco Miller, Paul Infinger, and James Ray Williams. Two spoke out against Burnett – Tammy Robinson and Marc Followwell.
Robinson and Followwell pointed out culture and complacency in their desires to see a change.
Among Robinson’s comments, she stated, “I’m here to talk about the mental health of my son and many others. My background is in child development and the things I witnessed this past football season affected the mental health of my son and other players as well. Prior to the season my son was asked to put on 30 pounds to play a position he didn’t get to play. He would do anything the coaches asked him to play at any position they would have asked. Watching my son force feed himself to please coaches to play on a team he believed in and loved, he succeeded on the weight gain and then told he was too slow. We would all be if we put on 30 pounds to please a coach. He’s played since elementary and always wanted to be a Brownwood Lion, but after his weight gain and not being allowed to play the position he was told to prepare for, and very little playing on a team in general, he didn’t bad mouth any coach. I asked one of his coaches and the answer was ‘he’s not a favorite.’
“We all have different views and I’ll respect yours if you can respect mine and we can agree on that, but sometimes things need to be shaken up. Whether we agree how it’s happening or disagree, it’s needed somehow. That’s how I feel about this football program. It needs to be shaken up, we need a change. The athletic director position was taken away and not announced, and that’s not enough in my opinion. He isn’t who we need leading our boys. Favorites don’t need to be had. That’s all I heard from kids past and present. We went from four boys coming into our program to losing six, three were from other towns and three were our own Lions raised to be a proud Lion. I’ve personally gone from proudly wearing my Brownwood maroon everywhere I go to making sure I don’t wear it in certain towns that I travel to work for.
“It was an embarrassment to watch the Lampasas game. Yes one of our players was taunted, but his violent reaction was not warranted. It did not reflect well on our Lions and our code of ethics. As a community we should not allow that. He was punished as per UIL rules but more should have happened from the school district itself. This is becoming a trend because it happened in practice the year before but no one received any punishment because we had to win the district title the next day. Problems began as early as 7-on-7, I witnessed it myself, it’s not rumors. Within two feet of me, a boy from another town came in and let our boys know he’s above them. As two of our boys spoke back to the boy and said we’re all Lions, we’re all wearing the same shirt, he continued to lower them and tell them he’s above them until his father thankfully came and pulled him away. I went and discussed this with Coach Burnett as did another mother. My husband and I took the proper chain of command as we spoke to Coach Burnett, my husband did. We realized our son, who loves this sport, wanted to quit, another born and raised Brownwood Lion, but we don’t allow our kids to quit. When you start something you finish it, that’s what we told our kids. Needless to say my son will not play for Coach Burnett. To benefit mental health and wellness I hope he is no longer the head coach.”
Followwell’s comments included, “The Brownwood Lions have had a rich and storied history spanning decades that commands the respect of our opponents, but recently we have observed a troubling trend – a lack of motivation and drive and a lack of community support for our teams. When there’s a lack of accountability we risk fostering an environment where mediocrity becomes the norm rather than the exception. Mediocrity is now the norm at BISD. We are aware you have removed Sammy Burnett from the athletic director position and feel that is only the beginning process that needs to happen to revitalize our culture. We urge the Board to continue taking proactive steps to address this issue.
“Issues that the community are seeing across our athletic department and primarily our football program are No. 1, a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline within sports is a cancer in the locker room. You must have discipline. But how can we expect to have discipline from our student athletes when our coaches are fighting in front of our kids. No. 2, a lack of competitive spirit. Our junior high coaches refuse to call timeout in a one possession game when our opponent has the ball at midfield. You cannot ask your kids to leave it all on the field when your coaches do not give them an opportunity. Subbing basketball players five in and five out like a line change in hockey tells me we care more about equal playing time than we do winning. Or playing freshmen and sophomores over your better players in some sports at the varsity level has the parents repeatedly asking ‘are we trying to lose?’ Our response to adversity in blowout home losses in football is a direct reflection of our coaches and seeing how our boys’ effort declines tells me we have a disconnect between our kids and our coaching staff, not to mention the decline of community support at Gordon Wood Stadium when with eight minutes left it’s nearly empty. No. 3, a lack of player development. We used to look at weight training as the norm and now our football kids do not lift weights consistently during the season. This is unacceptable. We must be lifting weights. High school coaches during our bye week not attending our junior high games is atrocious and a direct reflection of our mindset within our current program. No. 4, lack of player retention. We can no longer call ourselves the District of Choice when we have kids literally moving to other schools because they don’t want to play for certain coaches, and kids choosing not to play a certain sport in which they are passionate about because of the current coaching situation. We have multiple families who have transferred out of our District of Choice due to the coaching situation currently. I’ll never forget our first practice in junior high when Coach Freeman gave us a speech, ending the speech with the words ‘those who stay will be champions.’ People are leaving our community because we’ve lost that culture. We’ve become a culture of complacency. It’s one of the hardest things to change in sports but it starts at the top with leadership. We have to pay attention to the actual parents who are involved with the program on a daily basis. Please pay attention to the parents who have kids in the school district.”
Miller and Clark were the most vehement supports of Burnett, and defended the current culture surrounding the football program.
Miller stated, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would stand before you to defend a coach from Brownwood that’s the epitome of Brownwood, played for Brownwood, bled for Brownwood, played for the greatest coach in Brownwood, returned tradition to Brownwood. Everybody in Brownwood wants to win No. 8, we all do, but it’s been since 1981. Coaching is not the problem. We’ve gotten rid of some darn good coaches for reasons I don’t understand. This would be a catastrophe for this program. There’s a guy by the name of Randy Allen who wasn’t good enough for Brownwood, and what has he done since? There were coaches on Steve Freeman’s staff, John Walsh, I played for him. He left and went to Denton Guyer and what did they do? What that man Sammy Burnett preaches to these young men is exactly what is needed today. They need somebody that’s going to love on them but yet be tough. They need someone to tell them it’s not OK when it’s not OK. And if I have to dismiss a player from a team I will regardless of what the parents thing because it’s for the betterment of the team.”
Clark’s comments included, “I’ve been a football coach for 22 years and here in Brownwood for 14 years and I understand some parents have concerns that have been brought up about the culture of the boys athletic program and I wanted to address those tonight with the Board and community members here, and when I address them they’re going to be facts and first-hand accounts of what happened because I’m here every day – not rumors, not speculation, not half truths.
“In our football program we’re going to demand that our kids work hard and we’re going to coach them hard. We’re going to teach them they can do hard things because growing up and being a young man today is difficult. But when they face adversity and obstacles we’re going to teach to go attack them and overcome them. Don’t run away, don’t shrink back, don’t be cowards. That’s the culture that we’re going to preach everyday, and if that culture that is frowned upon then maybe we have a culture problem. We’re going to preach that to our kids and some people don’t like that and have already moved on and that’s their prerogative.
“We’re also going to hold our kids to a high standard. We expect them to act right and do right and represent our school and community and program well and when kids do things that kids do, and they make mistakes because they’re going to, we’re going to love them but we’re still going to hold them accountable and there will be consequences. Anyone that says otherwise is either lying or speaking out of ignorance.
“And finally we’re going to push these kids to be great in everything that they do. Whether it’s athletics or their school work or relationships outside of school, they’re going to be told on an everyday basis to go out and be great. They’re going to hear that everyday, and if that’s a culture you don’t want in your athletic program, then Coach Burnett is not your guy, I’m not your guy, and our coaching staff is not your guys.”