UPDATED: Sweetwater names Hamlin’s Lucas new AD, football coach

The Sweetwater Mustangs have their new head football coach and athletic director and didn’t have to look far to find him.

Sweetwater has tabbed Russell Lucas, Hamlin’s coach for the past 13 seasons, to replace Ben McGehee at the helm of the storied program. McGehee left the program in early February to take over Magnolia West.

That history is one thing that appealed to Lucas, who wasn’t even looking to leave the Pied Pipers.

“I think the history over there and it’s such an iconic venue to play in,” he said of what drew his interest in the job. “There’s less than 20 schools in the state of Texas that have won 700 football games and they are right there.”

Sweetwater is next in line to join the 700 club, needing just four wins this fall according to www.texashighschoolfootballhistory.com. The Mustangs are one of five Big Country schools that should reach the milestone in the next decade.

Lucas, who led Hamlin to the Class 2A Division II state championship game in 2019 for the first time in school history, will be taking over a program that won the state championship in 1985 and last appeared in the title game in 2016.

Having only been a head coach at Rotan and Hamlin, Lucas is looking forward to the challenge that being in Class 4A brings but also relishes one thing that he won’t have to do in his new job — teaching. Not having to teach will allow him to fully focus on athletics.

“I felt like the challenge was seeing if we could duplicate what we have done at other places on a bigger stage with more kids and more staff,” Lucas said. “I think that competitive fire was still in me to try to see if I could do it somewhere else again.”

Lucas said that in his entire career as a football coach, he’s had to teach a variety of subjects from anatomy to seventh grade science and even Spanish.

“To be able to focus strictly on coaches, kids and their programs,” he said, “I think is going to be refreshing for me, and I’m really looking forward to that and helping these coaches with programs other than just football.”

When reached by phone on Sunday afternoon, Lucas alluded the history of Hamlin natives landing in Sweetwater as head coaches.

“When you look at the coaches that have been over there with W.T. Stapler and Tom Ritchey and assistant coaches, there are a lot of Hamlin ties there,” said Lucas. “W.T. Stapler is a Hamlin grad. In my mind, it’s been one of those places that is a top tier job.”

Lucas added that it’s not that Hamlin’s not a top tier job and that he wasn’t looking to leave. He actually said that he and his wife, Rosie, could even consider retiring to Hamlin when that time comes.

But, he cautioned, don’t expect that to be in the next couple of years.

“Everybody always tells me that I’ll know when it’s time to move away from education, but I still enjoy getting up and going to work every day, being around the kids and the competition,” said Lucas. “I still love working with coaches and I think they are the greatest people on the face of the earth. I just enjoy my job and as long as I have the health to do it, I’m not ever going to be one that retires and goes to the golf course every day.

“I’m not going to be idle and feel like I can be productive. I’ll keep coaching.”

He said he hopes that means at least another decade.

Lucas said that had the Sweetwater job not worked out, he was happy and would have been just fine staying in Hamlin.

He will be taking over a Sweetwater program that has won at least 10 games in a season 20 times in program history, including annually from 2014-17. That’s a mark that he hit in six of his final seven seasons with the Pied Pipers, including the past five.

More than the wins and losses, what he treasures most about his time in Hamlin is the relationships he forged.

“The relationships we built with the kids, their families and the people we worked with, (from) coaches to teachers to the community,” he said. “I’ve been (coaching) for 31 years and I’ve spent 15 in Hamlin, 13 as the head coach.”

The agreement with Sweetwater came together fairly quickly and Lucas accepted the offer while working Hamlin’s track meet on Saturday. His start date hasn’t been determined yet, but his hiring should be made official by the SISD school board following spring break.

“They weren’t in a huge hurry and they had a process they wanted to go through,” Lucas said of the Sweetwater hiring process. “I know a couple of the applicants, and (Sweetwater) did a great job on the confidentiality (of applicants). Once it got time for the interview process, it lasted just a couple of days and it moved really quickly.”