An Open Letter to our TEAM:
Dear Distinguished DHS Foot- ball Scholar-Athletes, Trainers,
Managers & Coaches
DeSoto ISD Superintendent
As your superintendent, I am deeply proud of the awe-inspiring efforts levied towards the program’s pursuit of a second state title. Each of you have come together to represent the DeSoto and Glenn Heights communities with great pride and esteem and we are all astounded at your presence and performance under great pressure with such great resolve this season. With that being said, it is unfortunate that I am penning this letter to encourage you all as you prepare to engage in this week’s state title game. Where our community has been rallying for your success, this journey has been temporarily shadowed by the traction of a published dissenting statement from last week’s opponent.
DeSoto Independent School District’s school community and leaders remain committed to creating world-class education and experiences that aim to prepare scholars like yourselves for global stages.
Part of these preparations, extended through the Triple-A Experience comprising Academics Arts and Athletics, include the art of perseverance in the midst of adversity–a skill that will resurface throughout your lives as you grow and advance, both, person- ally and professionally.
As you all prepare for the program’s return to the state stage for the second consecutive season, commentary regarding the school community and the program continue to grow. Whether in notes of support; celebrations of success; predictions over the team’s future contests in what has been an undefeated campaign this season; or questions about what makes this team so incredibly competitive, you all have continued to embark on this journey with unfettered resilience, unparalleled focus and unbridled discipline.
As one of the teams set to assume your rightfully-earned place in this year’s University Interscholastic League football state finals, you are among an exclusive class of teams. Five of the six coaches leading teams on Saturday at AT&T Stadium are coaches of color, particularly, African-American coaches–a nod to the access and availability of opportunities to a more diverse body of professionals leading the top teams and programs not only in Texas High School football but at all levels.
As with other historical references to increased access and visibility for minority groups, this phenome-non is no different for you in that it has incurred a range of commentary and discourse related to race and, in some cases, class and affluence.
Where many hope that sports is the one stage where human beings can experience the depth and breadth of one of the most unfiltered human experiences- competition. Whether in pursuit of overcoming personal challenges and tests; team and togetherness; bonding around a unified goal; and adopting discipline and focus en route to victorious outcomes and, in some cases defeat, the reality is that aspects of division and discrimination continue to speckle public engagement with sports and education.
A Quote On Racism
The function of racism … is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Some- body says you have no language and so you spend 20 years prov- ing that you do. … None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
—Toni Morrison, Novelist
Our Call to Action
Even as the discussion centers around you, our scholars, who are ultimately still children, albeit in mature, athletically-gifted bodies, recent published comments show some professionals and communities lack reserve and respect for the ideals we strive to teach our Eagles through sports like integrity and sportsmanship.
While disappointing to read the comments of competitors and sports journalists who lend their voices and platforms to innuendo that aims to detract from the excellence of the programs entering this final week of Texas High School football, including our own, as a school community, we rally you–our scholar-athletes, coaches and community members–to continue to hold your heads high, walk tall and maintain your focus on what has afforded you the opportunity to return to the state championship stage for the second year in a row.
As former first lady Michelle Obama encouraged us to do just a few years ago, “When they go low, we go high,” so, as Eagles, let’s spread our wings and soar forward into the greatness that awaits us.
Your Super Proud Superintendent,
Dr. Usamah Rodgers
#JustDoItAgain
SoaringForward
As noted in The Dallas Morning News
As noted in The Dallas Morning News “Since Carroll’s championship runs in the 2000s, new contenders like DeSoto have emerged. DeSoto Head Coach Claude Mathis and his contemporaries in the Dallas area’s southern sector have cultivated their talent-rich teams and turned them into state powers. ‘We don’t have all of the five stars and all of the cat daddies running around,” Dodge said. "We got to be about our work, and these kids, what they put into this each and every day, is unmatched.”
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