Posted: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 08:47 PM - 12,238 Readers
By: Rick Cantu
photography by Erich Schlegel
Coming off seasons in which their respective teams won state championships, Matt and Julie Green's decision to tender their resignations from Lake Travis High School on Tuesday was painfully difficult.
Matt Green, the offensive coordinator for the football team, steps away from a program that has won the Class 4A state title for four straight years. Julie Green leaves just two months after her team won the first state volleyball championship in school history.
The surprising move by the husband-wife couple was made so they could better support their children, the Greens said. Their sons, 7-year-old Maddox and 5-year-old Briggs, will have more relatives available to care for them when the family moves to Coppell this spring.
"We have lots of family in that area," Matt Green said . "I'm not saying we're on an island (in Austin), but we don't have any family (here). When you concurrently manage two state championship seasons — with all the expectations that go along at a place like this — it can be a burden."
Julie Green, 33, has been hired as head coach of the varsity volleyball team at Coppell High, a Class 5A school in the Dallas area. She also will be the school's athletic coordinator.
Matt Green, who aspires to be a head football coach or athletic director, said he has "some good options" in both areas but continues to look at possibilities.
Both coaches told their respective teams about their plans on Tuesday. "The hardest part about all of this is leaving the kids," Julie Green said.
Lake Travis has enjoyed unparalleled success in athletics in recent years.
Matt Green, 34, has been on the coaching staff for three of the football team's four state championships.
Julie Green's volleyball team that won state with a 50-3 record will return nearly its entire lineup next season, including University of Texas-bound outside hitter Amy Neal and Mackenzie Mayo, a libero who plans to sign with Baylor.
"It's extremely difficult to leave a situation like this," Matt Green said. "If there is a better high school out there, I'd like to see it."
Lake Travis athletic director Gary Briley described the coaches' departures as a "double-whammy."
"You want to keep your people here, but you also want them to be happy," Briley said. "You can't step on their toes (to prevent them from leaving). \u2026 They have found a great opportunity that's good for them and good for their family."
The Lake Travis football team averaged 37 points per game in winning its fourth consecutive state championship . Quarterback Michael Brewer, already enrolled at Texas Tech, said Green was a major reason for Lake Travis' success.
"Coach Green was a really good play-caller," Brewer said Tuesday in a phone interview. "He'd be in the press box watching what the defense was doing, and I'd always talk to him on the headset on the sidelines. Whoever they hire, he'll have to be a really good coach (to replace Green)."
The same might be said for Julie Green.
