SAN ANTONIO – Danny Padron, 68, has decided to come out of retirement to become the new head football coach at Antonian High School.
“The fire is still there, the passion is still there, ” explained Padron. “Missed the relationship with the kids and missed the relationship with the coaches, just the school community. I think I had the opportunity to go back to a Catholic school just made it that much better.”
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The reason, Padron’s coaching career, which has spanned over the last six decades, started at St Gerard High School in 1971 before becoming the Royals head coach in 1975 after taking over for the legendary George Pasterchick. Since that time, he has served on the coaching staffs of the Clark Cougars twice and the Judson Rockets before becoming the head coach at O’Connor High School, where he led the Panthers for eight seasons. He then moved on to the college ranks at Texas Lutheran University, where he spent seven seasons with the Bulldogs before retiring in 2016.
“Antonian has a great reputation and we are very much aware of them,” Padron said. “Coaching in college, we recruited Antonian and so I’ve always had my eye on that school.”
The job became available when Van Fuschak announced his retirement in February after nine seasons with the private school, leading the Apaches to the TAPPS Division I state semifinals last year.
“They’ve had a lot of great success in all sports, so we’re excited about being part of it," he said.
One of the first decisions Padron made when he took over the Antonian football program was the hiring of another high school coaching legend in San Antonio to be his assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. Bryan Dausin, who led the Roosevelt Roughriders to the state championship in 1995 before becoming the head coach at Marshall High School from 1997-2001 and then Warren from 2002-2017 before joining the staff at TLU in 2018.
“We always said we wanted to be able to coach together and this is an opportunity,“ said Padron, who also wants to retain Blake Fuschak as the Apaches offensive coordinator. “We wanted that continuity for the kids and the community.”
It was Padron’s work at St Matthew’s Catholic Church that got him to think about returning to coaching when Father Dennis Arechiga asked Padron would he ever go back into coaching and his answer was a quick yes.
“Especially at Antonian,” added Padron. “That is a school very close to our neighborhood, a Catholic school, so that was probably the only place I would go and it just happened it worked out.”