Sports Texoma

Looking to close out this decade in a similar fashion to how the Whitewright football program started the current 10-year demarcation, the Tigers are turning to the man who helped lead them to that success.

The Whitewright ISD school board approved the hiring of Jodie Stringer to be the athletic director and head football coach on Monday night for a return engagement with a coach who has been away from the game for five years.

“I guess I’ve always been a coach at heart. Whitewright’s a very special place for me,” Stringer said. “They showed a lot of interest in me and the more I looked, the more it looked like a place to jump back into the coaching profession.”

Stringer, who will start on May 18, is back in charge of a program where he had great success. The last Whitewright head football coach to do two separate stints was Charlie Sessom, who guided the program from 1970-76 and then returned for the 1980 and ’81 seasons.

“I’ve been offered a lot of coaching jobs from 1A to 5A the last five years,” Stringer said. “And to be honest, I haven’t been interested in entertaining them until Whitewright called.”

After arriving from The Colony in 1999 and serving as the offensive coordinator, Stringer became a head football coach for the first time when Whitewright tabbed him for 2000 and 2001. The Tigers went 25-3 and twice reached the region final, losing both times to Celina during the Bobcats’ run of four straight state championships.

He left Whitewright in early 2002 to take over at Sanger, where he missed part of the season due to health issues, and then in an administrative role at McKinney North before taking his last coaching job, Overton, in 2004. The past five years he has been in a teaching-only capacity in the social studies department at Melissa.

“A lot has changed. I think I’m going to have to have the ability to adapt,” Stringer said. “Schemes, styles, Xs and Os. We’ll have to be flexible.”

Among Stringer’s first decisions will be hiring a head boys basketball coach after Phil Kempson stepped down to take a job at Quinlan Ford. Kempson led the Tigers to state in 2007 and to the region final this past season.

“Going through resumes as we speak,” he said. “That’s top priority. Our goal is to win the Lone Star Cup. We want a program where every kid who participates in a sport at Whitewright has a chance to win.”

Stringer will be the third Tiger head football coach and athletic director in the past three seasons as he replaces Dale Trompler.

Trompler, who was hired only a year ago to replace Chuck Lipsey, resigned from the positions in early April. Trompler’s contract had been extended by a year in February — a customary move for administrators with that much time remaining on the contract — which would have taken him through the 2010-11 academic year.

Whitewright went 2-8 this past season, finishing seventh in the eight-team District 11-2A and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1997.

“I have no magic formula or bullets or magic dust,” Stringer said. “Right now we’re in a rebuilding mode. I’ve asked them to be realistic.”