ALVARADO — Subsequent Jeff Dixon’s retirement, Alvarado ISD is turning to a common encounter to consider in excess of as the Indians’ new head soccer mentor and athletic director: Casey Walraven.
After Dixon declared his retirement on April 25 subsequent 17 effective years major the Indians, it did not choose Alvarado ISD prolonged to conduct its search and come to a decision that Walraven, a 1996 graduate of Alvarado Significant School and previous beginning quarterback for the Indians, was the person for the job.
Upon joining Alvarado ISD, Walraven — who features a profession file of 62-45 as a head coach — will now have served as head soccer mentor at three distinctive educational institutions in Johnson County.
He heads to Alvarado soon after 5 yrs as Cleburne’s head soccer coach (19-30) and boys athletic coordinator and five yrs as Grandview’s head football coach (43-15) and athletic director.
Walraven explained he’s psyched and grateful to have the prospect to coach in his hometown.
“I’m incredibly enthusiastic,” he claimed. “That’s where by I grew up. That’s exactly where my spouse and children grew up. It’s wherever my spouse grew up. To be ready to go coach at a spot the place you have invested so substantially time and you know what the tradition is like and you know what the town expects, it’s exciting.”
Walraven claimed there were being quite a few factors he was intrigued in returning dwelling to Alvarado, but one particular of the most important reasons was to function with people today he’s recognized for so prolonged and believes in, together with AISD superintendent Kenneth Estes, who was 1 of Walraven’s coaches when he played in large college, and AHS principal Chris Magee, a higher university teammate of Walraven’s.
“Just to get that chance and to be ready to go perform for one particular of my coaches in higher school and becoming on campus with a teammate I experienced who is the principal and just recognizing the people today I know there, it’s a cozy experience,” he explained. “I’m particularly excited to get started and to surround myself with some more Alvarado men and the greatest fellas and gals we can find to fill places.”
Alvarado ISD Superintendent Kenneth Estes mentioned Walraven was the perfect prospect to lead Indian football and Alvarado athletics.
“We did an intensive lookup, looking at coaches from throughout the point out with a multitude of encounters and a large amount of success,” Estes said. “When it came down to what we ended up searching for, Casey checked each individual one one of our bins. He’s had playoff achievement, had expertise as an athletic director and, most importantly, he’s confirmed himself to be a society and marriage builder.
“This is an fascinating time to be an Alvarado Indian. I’ve viewed Casey expand from staying a scholar to the man he is now and I’ve normally been a fan. There are a whole lot of former Alvarado Indians who are head coaches or coordinators throughout the space and we’re thrilled to have one particular of them coming home to mentor the latest technology of Alvarado Indians.”
Even throughout Walraven’s coaching tenures at Kennedale, Grandview and Cleburne, he’s generally preserved fantastic pride in becoming from Alvarado and mentioned he’s even now waiting around for it to sink in that he’ll be top the Indians under the Friday night lights.
“I think it’s a minor surreal appropriate now,” Walraven said. “There were being instances wherever I was privileged sufficient to play for a coaching workers that designed me want to be a mentor. And as a coach you tend to undertaking exactly where you are from so in that way it feels organic. It feels like an computerized suit for the reason that I expended the overall starting of my everyday living there. It is a surreal experience nonetheless but I experienced that sensation coming to Cleburne and had that experience when I took in excess of in Grandview.
“I’ve been privileged and blessed to have individuals that believe in me and believe in in me and hopefully every single spot can say, ‘He gave it all he had and his workers gave it all they experienced and he grew gentlemen and women of all ages to be greater.’ I hope which is what I do in Alvarado. And, definitely, we want to gain as much as we potentially can. It is a special sensation when you are placing the purple and gold back on and you know it is property.”
Walraven reported he’s also fired up that his two little ones — Rex, a second grader, and Liv, in pre-K — will show up at the exact same faculty he and his family members did.
Though Walraven is ready to get to operate in Alvarado, he also observed it was a tricky conclusion to depart Cleburne. When Walraven still left Grandview for Cleburne in 2017, he explained then that telling his players in Grandview was the toughest aspect of the move — and that it’s the exact point now, obtaining educated his players in Cleburne on Monday early morning.
“I was pondering about this just lately: for a while, I actually felt like I desired to operate my way up and test to be a school coach but I have recognized, in particular with predicaments like this, that that’s not definitely who I am,” Walraven reported. “I just cannot just depart a put and crack connections and forget about it, like it seems how these faculty coaches who soar from 1 area to an additional do and there’s no emotion tied to it. This, as it was in Grandview, is a gut-wrenching assumed to depart a position where by I virtually have set anything I have had into it.”
Whilst Walraven could not get the Jackets to the level of good results acquire- and reduction-smart that he desired, he explained he and his coaching personnel labored tirelessly to return Cleburne to its sturdy soccer custom. He also additional how appreciative he is to all of his scholar-athletes in Cleburne that labored so tough for him, and for that, between other causes, it was a hard choice to depart.
“I simply cannot clarify the sum of function and time and energy that not just me but all of the coaches have place into this put to get the culture to where by the neighborhood can be proud of it,” he explained. “These young children have faith in us and I come to feel like they are my own. It would make me psychological to assume about them and I’m confident it’s tough for them to comprehend and I really don’t hope them to. They’re specific to me and they constantly will be. They’re a element of my loved ones.
“I’m also so grateful to the administration and how they’ve been client with me and allowed me to do items and get it to where we need to get it. It is tricky to go away a place like that but I’m also glad I can leave this area, like I remaining Grandview, with great associations with folks and excellent reminiscences.”
Walraven explained he has the utmost regard for Dixon — the two as a mentor and individual — and he is grateful to the Indians’ longtime head coach that he’s in a placement to just take in excess of an now set up software with a robust tradition and work ethic, a software with championship-level aspirations. Dixon led Alvarado to the point out championship recreation in 2011, the Indians’ only condition last physical appearance in application record, and 12 consecutive playoff appearances.
“Coach Dixon is a monumental determine in Alvarado,” Walraven reported. “What I’m on the lookout forward most is I get to go into a put in which he now had framework and society, and I really don’t have to wholly make it from the foundation all the way up. There is heading to be some issues I can use from what he’s previously performed.
“As an alumni from Alvarado — even aside from me coming in as a coach — I’m appreciative for all he’s carried out for the faculty district. To be at a put 17 a long time these times suggests you’re doing anything suitable and he did that and he was a class act via all the things. I know what type of man or woman he is and how he represented Alvarado, and I’m grateful to him for that. For me, it is my work to establish off what he was doing and get Alvarado rolling and shift into a new era just like they will just after I’m accomplished. With any luck , I can be there that lengthy. I’m fired up to get there.”
At initially glance from an on-the-discipline standpoint, Walraven’s arrival in Alvarado and the offensive techniques and philosophies he provides with him may seem to be night time and day from the operate-centric, floor-and-pound offense that Dixon productively utilized for approximately two many years. But Walraven claimed his most popular offense is primarily based out of a electric power operate activity.
“It’s not essentially as massive of a variation as persons from the outside may well see,” Walraven explained. “The offense we run is a actual physical, ability, downhill-variety of operate match. Which is what Dixon did a ton. They’ve constantly been bodily up front.”
Also, Walraven reported he will often mildew his offense to suit the strengths of the players.
“With our offense, we adapt to the personnel. Which is the principal factor we do,” he explained. “The mystery ingredient is utilizing the talent you have. If that means jogging the ball 85% of the time, which is what we’re going to do. If you’re blessed with a guy at quarterback like Zach Smith like we experienced at Grandview, we’re likely to toss it 70% of the time. We’re heading to adapt to personnel. I feel Coach Dixon did a excellent position of that.
“It may search different and we’re heading to create matters right here and there and ideally spread the ball close to but we want to use the staff as efficiently as Mentor Dixon did and be actual physical up entrance. At the end of the working day, all these flashy offenses you see, the blocking schemes go back again 60 several years. No issue what scheme you have, it doesn’t swap enjoying actual physical.”
Alvarado was placed in a very aggressive district this year adhering to the benefits of the UIL’s biennial realignment. In soccer, the Indians will be in District 5-4A Division I with China Spring, Stephenville, Waco La Vega and Waxahachie Lifetime. China Spring is the defending 4A Division II condition winner and Stephenville is the defending 4A Division I point out champion. La Vega has made a pair of operates to the condition championship match in new a long time as very well. But the optimistic factor of becoming in a five-team district is a person acquire clinches a playoff berth.
Walraven coached the Zebras to the playoffs in 4 of his 5 seasons at the helm, including an undefeated typical year and excursion to the 3rd spherical of the playoffs in 2015. In Walraven’s time in Cleburne, he coached the Jackets to a few straight five-get seasons but was not able to split by way of and earn a playoff berth in a brutally tough district that highlighted the likes of Aledo, Everman, Arlington Seguin, Mansfield Timberview and Burleson.