Ron Elliott is a man who loves sports. He’s also a man who likes to stay busy. Both these traits are coming in handy these days, as Elliott finds himself busy indeed as head coach for both the football and basketball varsity teams at Woodrow Wilson High School.
"During football season I get to school at 7:15 or 7:30 in the morning and get home between 10 and 10:30 at night," he says. "Right now football and basketball are overlapping, and when basketball season is over we start football all over again.
"Right now it’s a seven-day-a-week commitment."
Elliott came to Woodrow Wilson 16 years ago as an assistant football coach and head soccer coach. Three years later, he was named junior varsity basketball coach. Beginning this fall, he became head coach for both the football and basketball teams. He also teaches three health classes during the school day.
A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Elliott taught and coached at his alma mater and later in the East Texas town of Athens before coming to Woodrow Wilson in 1981. During his first years in Dallas, he coached a young man who would later become a Heisman Trophy winner: Tim Brown, who went on to play for Notre Dame, win the trophy and join the Oakland Raiders as a wide receiver.
"Tim and I still stay in touch after all these years. He hasn’t forgotten where he came from," Elliott says. "He comes back every year to do a golf tournament benefiting the Woodrow athletic department and the community, and I go to Santa Clara every summer to help run his football camp."
What’s kept him at Woodrow Wilson for so many years?
"I guess I just like the community and the kids here," Elliott says. "It can be a challenge because we don’t have the depth of talent a lot of other schools do, but that’s what I like about it.
"I like being the underdog, turning things around and letting people see what the kids can do."
His players appreciate the depth of his commitment and understand that he expects the same of them. Junior fullback Daniel DeLeon says, "Coach E knows what he’s doing. He works us hard, and he works hard too. He prepares us to win every time."
Adds quarterback Brandon Romney, "He motivates us well. And if you make a mistake, he makes sure you do it right the next time. As a team, we can see a big improvement over last year, especially in our offense."
As much as he loves coaching, Elliott doesn’t plan to stay in charge of both basketball and football indefinitely. By the end of the school year, he is hoping to hire a new head coach for one of the sports – but he isn’t sure which one it will be.
"Football is more work and longer hours, but I don’t know," he says. "I really enjoy both. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see."
