School Spotlight: Westwood High School (Palestine, Texas)

Westwood High School, out of Palestine, Texas, plays in the 3A Classification of Texas high school football. They are ranked as the #598 team in the state and the #48 team in their classification of 3A. The Panthers, whose colors are orange, black and white, had a good year making it to the playoffs and finishing 3rd in the district. This week, I had the honor of talking to coach Richard Bishop, and got to talk with him about the vision of this team, the future he has with this program, and some of his athletes. 

During the discussion with coach Bishop, he talked a lot about how much this past senior class has set the stone for this program. It was his 5th year at the school, and he grew as a coach with this senior class. He considers them the catalyst for change as they were not the most talented but they had the best leadership out of anyone he has coached. This team, he said, had a great locker room and kept the pulse in the locker room right. One of the messages he preached to this team was to grow and get 1% better everyday. Minnesota’s head coach PJ Fleck’s famous mantra is Row the boat. That is the same here for the Westwood Panthers, as they have shown to be  resilient in every aspect. Wins will come, but if they get better 1% everyday, then they know that they will have a successful program for the future.

Discussing the future of this program, Coach Bishop described the future as everyone seeing the tip of the iceberg. When you see an iceberg, you only see 3-5% of it, not the rest of it. There is not a whole lot of history at this school. A district title in the 90s and a share of the title in 2008 has been some of their best seasons. But the potential for this team is through the roof. His players know that every year, they are to “reset the bar higher than the team before”.  Each team will experience something the previous team has never done and once they taste the playoffs, there’s no going back. This program will know the standard and they will know how to get it done.

Before letting him go, I was able to ask Coach Bishop to highlight some of the talent he had on both sides of the ball that would be returning to help the team build on a great season. 

Athletes: 

Boston Anderson is going to be a junior, and plays WR and OLB

Brandon Russell is going to be a senior and plays WR and OLB.

Lamarion Goodwyn is going to a senior and plays QB and DE.