Burnet CISD’s deep pool of athletes

CAPTION: Sophomore Landry Schubert was comfortable playing anywhere the Lady Dawgs needed her. Staff photos by Jennifer Fierro

Upperclassmen provide plenty to each sport that can’t be substituted. Because of their experience, they know the proper way to attack each drill, they have the knowledge of opponents, and they have been in strength and conditioning to have properly prepared themselves physically for what’s coming. 

In addition, by the time they’re upperclassmen, they should have the mental and physical tools to take on the same traits in opponents.

Those qualities are what positively impact the department, athletic director Grant Freeman said. But it goes beyond that for him.

Freeman served as a head coach for seven years in football and boys basketball. In 2023 he finished the football season as the Wichita Falls High School head coach before transitioning full time to athletic director. Then he took the same position at Burnet Consolidated Independent School District last year.  

“I’m going to put two different hats on,” he said. “I’m going to put my old head coach hat on. Head coaches are judged by what the varsity does, and just that’s the reality of it. You have kind of a three-year window to prove that you can do it and then you buy years after that based on what you’ve done. But for an athletic director, it’s a little bit actually reversed.”

That’s why he seeing the number of student-athletes in each grade and the sports they’re playing tells Freeman plenty. 

“The varsity is just a given,” he said. “Everybody has a varsity, but how I look at the health and the longevity of a program is how they’re developing their lower levels. How are we developing our subvarsities? Are we having to play freshmen and sophomores out of position because we’re not doing a good job or because we’re just trying to win on the varsity? Are we actually developing a foundation for what we’re doing? What does our middle school programs look like? And that’s how I judge the health of an athletic department is actually by the underclassmen.” 

A year ago, football head coach Ben Speer was excited about the hire of Mark Zeigler as the Burnet Middle School athletic coordinator. Zeigler had already coached on varsity staffs and wanted to coach seventh- and eighth-graders because it gave him a chance to teach the basics and fundamentals. And Speer believed that Zeigler could not only prepare those students for high school sports, he could also send a large number of incoming freshmen to the program. 

A year later, the numbers didn’t lie. Freeman said 142 seventh-grade girls played volleyball, basketball and track and field and the eighth-graders had 132.

The seventh-grade boys had 166 participate in football, basketball and track and field and the eighth grade had 161. The goal is to have as many incoming freshmen as possible continue to play sports at Burnet, Freeman said. 

“Everybody in the state of Texas is going to put the best kids that they have in their program and give themselves the best chance to win if you gave it just straight to the head coaches,” he said. “But really, where you develop an overall athletic program is in your lower levels and how they’re handling that and how good are our numbers there. Are we playing people where they’re supposed to be? Are we moving them up when they actually are ready to be moved up or are we doing it just because we have to?”

He pointed out three freshmen who played significant rotations for head coach Crystal Shipley’s volleyball team in 2025: Marisa Porter, Landry Schubert and Taylor Smith. They helped the Lady Dawgs go 26-10, 8-4 in District 24-4A play to advance to the plays. 

Their talent and skill were evident to fans watching the matches, including the athletic director, who noted the volleyball program had a pool of athletes try out. 

“They were ready,” Freeman said. “Not because coach Shipley had to, if that makes sense. To me that’s a healthy program.”