VYPE’s “Fresh Faces” series introduces new Head Football Coaches in the Austin area…
Hendrickson head coach Adam Naron majored in architecture in college, a background that puts a whole new spin on the phrase “designing a team in his own image.” He’ll have the chance to do just that as he tries to renovate the Hendrickson Hawks and get them back in the playoffs for the first time since 2020.
Following a standout career at Plainview High School, the 43-year-old San Antonio native’s path led quickly, if indirectly, to coaching.
“I was in college and I was an architecture major and I was playing football. I was a football practicer, not so much a football player,” Naron elaborated on his collegiate “career” at Texas Tech with a chuckle. “I got halfway through that freshman year, and I decided that I wanted to be around sports and I wanted to work with kids and with people. I thought architecture was pretty cool, but I thought coaching would be a lot more fun.
“And so, my competitive juices and my experience playing sports throughout high school and as a child led me into coaching and I think it’s been a really rewarding career. Getting to work with people and at the same time being able to do something that’s exciting and competitive.”
Naron began his coaching career at the junior high level in Frisco. He then spent several more years coaching at various high schools in the Metroplex, including JJ Pierce, Prosper and Frisco Reedy where he was the offensive coordinator. He spent the last five seasons as the head coach and athletic coordinator at Hereford High School in West Texas. It was there that his architectural background found a surprising outlet.
“My last job as an athletic director, I was able to do a lot of field design, and then we built a new fieldhouse, upgrades to the stadiums and the facilities,” Naron recalled. “So, I do think as a coach, it’s not just X’s and O’s. You gotta look at those things like layouts of the fields and the locker rooms and press boxes and the logistics of those things. So, I can see the relationship between coaching and having to have that eye for that organization like an architect might have also.”
After 15 seasons in the Metroplex and five seasons in West Texas, Naron saw in Hendrickson a chance to move closer to family.
“(Coaching in West Texas) was a very neat experience but we wanted to get back closer to the Austin area,” Naron explained. “My family, my parents, I’ve got a couple of sisters that live here, my brother who lives in Boerne, my wife has family in the area, so just kind of getting to this area was important.”
Hendrickson also seemed like a good fit to his wife, Torrie, who’s also an educator, 8th grade daughter Kennedy and son Davis, a 4th-grader.
“I wanted to be at a school that was high academic, that my kids could go to and they’d learn and be successful as well as being at a school that I thought could be competitive and successful in athletics. So, it had to be both. It had to be academic and had to be highly athletic. Hendrickson checked a lot of those boxes,” Naron stated.
“Oddly enough, my dad started working at Hendrickson last year. He’s a teacher; he’s been at a couple of other Austin area schools, but he just started working at Hendrickson, so I had little bit of familiarity with Hendrickson. Coach (Jonathan) Lamb, the athletic director, we had some connections to each other from some of the coaches I’ve worked with in the past. He also spent some time coaching in West Texas in Plainview, my hometown where I grew up, so he had a few connections and some people we knew and so it just kind of made sense as an opportunity to pursue.”
Naron takes over a Hawks team that’s finished back-to-back .500 seasons and hasn’t reached the postseason in six years. He’s aware that ending that streak in a loaded District 12-5A-1 that includes the likes of Georgetown, Weiss, College Station, A&M Consolidated and others will be an uphill battle. But he’s up for the challenge.
“The thing I’ve heard since Day 1 is how tough this district is and I’m familiar with several of the coaches in the district. I’ve worked for Brandon Schmidt (A&M Consolidated) at Prosper; Malcolm Hill at Weiss was my receivers coach when I was offensive coordinator at Reedy, so I’ve got some familiarity with those guys.
“But lots of strong programs in this district and I think you’ll see improvement in the teams that were weaker last year and then the top bunch is going to get even tougher. So, as hard as it is, our goal is still to win. Right now, everybody’s saying, ‘Well, this is the team to beat,’ or ‘this is the team to beat.’ Hopefully, we can steal some from those guys and we can come out and surprise a few people as well.“
Architects start any design with a blank sheet of paper or a cursor blinking on an empty computer screen. Naron knows the same principle applies as he looks to rebuild the Hendrickson Hawks into a contender.
We’re looking forward to this season,” he declared. “There’s a lot of change and some uncertainty and things like that which go along with a coaching change, but the kids have responded really well. I think they’re fired up and they’re excited to play.
“Again, it’s a tough district and they know that and I think they’re excited to put themselves to the test and try to prove themselves against everybody else.”