Written by Keith Calkins

The flip into 2025 and the St. Thomas spring semester brought immediate, unexpected changes for acclaimed Eagle Football head coach Rich McGuire and the St. Thomas program he had called home for more than a decade.

In a move that was perhaps curious and caused a flinch inside and outside the Eagle community, McGuire resigned to join the staff at Southeastern Oklahoma University.

McGuire was selected offensive coordinator, quarterback coach, and game day play caller for the climbing Division II program in the 12-team Great American Conference. The rapid development delivered sudden impact.

After an upbringing in Oklahoma and furthering his education in Kansas and Illinois, McGuire had reached the calculated conclusion to have “shoveled my last driveway. I’m here for a week and have literally six-eight inches of snow falling. And what am I out there doing today, shoveling the driveway.”

Welcome to Durant, Oklahoma.

Venture Forth

Very few people were ready for the news to drop out of the clouds on a random December afternoon.

But the reasoning supporting McGuire’s sharp departure was authentic to his values on and off the field. And McGuire is completely confident not only in his own decision but also the in-house succession plan that calls for long-time defensive coordinator and invaluable confidant Ray Davis to take over as head coach.

“That St. Thomas locker room is full,” McGuire says. “Going forward, the freshmen and sophomore classes are loaded, talent and numbers. There’s a bedrock of stability and great continuity with Ray who is an excellent coach. But the jump to the college game came for me and it’s a chance to pursue what I’ve talked about for 20 years. The timing was right for all parties.”

McGuire’s one lament is no longer partnering with athletic director Mike Netzel and sharing an ethos more relationship-driven than results-driven – challenging Eagle scholar-athletes to embrace the finest version of themselves and representing the best that St. Thomas may offer.

”We are much more dear friends than professional colleagues,” McGuire says. “Going to work every day was easy when you had that kind of collaboration. Mike is a coach at heart, understands the minefield and the mentality. He’s extremely detail oriented, always heads off potential problems before they surface or become outsized. And above all, he cares. He empowers individuals to seek the highest possible results while taking no credit. I’ll significantly miss the camaraderie.”

Familiar Turf

The shift to Southeastern for McGuire is both homecoming and reunion, starting with the proximity to his roots and extending to two-year head coach Bo Atterberry.

“I’ve known him for 50 years,” McGuire says. “His father Duke was my defensive coordinator in high school (Pawhuska, population 2,984). Got Bo his first high school job. He was on my staff in Bartlesville (Oklahoma) before I came to Houston.”

McGuire plans to adapt and modify his offensive approach and playbook from the rollicking adventures offered by former Eagle see-the-matrix guru Matt Hudson. “Maybe expand the run game,” McGuire says.

One swift acknowledgement to the transition: “All the coaches are on campus every day. It’s wall-to-wall ball.”

What stays non-negotiable is cultivating the same unquenchable competitiveness within the team that characterized his outfits at St. Thomas.

 

Red and White Renaissance

McGuire first arrived at St. Thomas to assist head coach Tim Fitzpatrick during the groundbreaking of a robust Eagle Football resurgence that included a series of electric beat-the-clock knocks over Strake Jesuit. The 42-35 thrillarama in 2015 played out in front of a frantic crowd of nearly 10,000 at NRG Stadium, the home of the NFL Houston Texans.

After an 18-month hiatus away from St. Thomas, McGuire returned in 2017 to pilot the program where some felt it might not go again. His final St. Thomas tale of the tape measured a rugged 52-19 win-loss mark, 32-6 in district, and 8-8 in the TAPPS postseason while never missing the playoffs. Three times the Eagles soared to the state semifinals and in 2023 to the state championship stare down.

In a six-season span from 2018-2023 that ushered St. Thomas back to the private school mainstream, Eagle Football racked a 26-2 district record with four undefeated titles plus a share in 2021. In the final three years of that scintillating stretch, McGuire rocked a 15-1 non-district slate with 11 straight triumphs. He was named the Touchdown Club of Houston Private Coach of the Year in 2020.

Best Is Standard

Throughout his tenure at St. Thomas, McGuire was acutely aware of his Basilian surroundings. The program’s culture proved elite. He passionately prioritized his student-athletes. A conga line paraded yearly from wallapalooza record-smashing to individual Instagramable applause to football opportunities at the collegiate level. Included in the mix were a slew of vaunted university destinations such as Rice, Baylor, Yale, Vanderbilt, Villanova, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cal-Berkeley, Colorado School of Mines, Trinity, Southwestern, et al. That rate of return illustrated McGuire’s and the school’s desire to inspire supreme success from every vantage point of the college prep prism.

Academic excellence, spiritual and character development, and civic commitment were in lockstep with Hudl highlights in forming the complete St. Thomas scholar.

Eagle Football proudly participated in the inaugural four-team Catholic Bowl events in 2021 and 2022. The celebration in Frisco was a salute to faith, freedom, cultural exchange, and bonafide Catholic identity.

In 2022 and 2023, St. Thomas was named the private school state champion for the National Football Foundation National High School Academic Excellence Awards. This prestigious distinction was in association with the nationwide recognition honoring individual teams with a 3.0 or above cumulative grade point average.

When quizzed McGuire would provide long, winding and fervent details about how, at St. Thomas, he wanted to keep the relationships the old way. It was about people, embedding mutual respect, gaining shared accountability. It was about the families.

First, foremost, forever.

“There’s no denying that the winning was gratifying,” McGuire says. “But here’s the deal. I was on the phone this morning at 11:30 a.m. with Maddox Kopp (two-year starting quarterback and 2020 Elite 11 finalist now at Miami, OH). When your former players are maturing and still reaching out for advice or guidance after they’ve left the program, that’s what made my investment most worthwhile. That trust and those lasting connections with our guys and coaches will always be the most important aspect for me. But make no mistake, that 2023 run was a hell of a ride.”

In It To Win It

The Eagle apex with McGuire first broke with brilliance in August, intense klieg carbon arc beams, blinding and illuminating a clear path for the radiance soon to be unbridled, the week-to-week conquering, mere mortal opposition left slack-jawed.

McGuire’s seventh season thrusted out front throughout the fall, surging not for substantial or special but for perfection – the program’s first unbeaten regular campaign since 2013 and only the second since 1939.

When the games busted from the phone booth and resorted to recess mode, overmatched adversaries were grasping for answers, because when the Eagles would spread the field, no one could slow much less stop them.

The turbo-blast extravaganza propelled St. Thomas to the state’s no. 1 private rank for 10 straight polls by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. The Eagles dominated as the wire-to-wire no. 1 private in Greater Houston by the Houston Chronicle. Consecutive convincing playoff knockouts at home raised the unchallenged win streak to a tantalizing 12, punctuated by majestic running back Johann Cardenas ‘24 (Vanderbilt) who proved to be the manchild of the moment in the state Final Four against Prestonwood Christian Academy. He bolted and jolted, barreled and bullied for one of the colossal single performances in the history of Eagle Athletics – a mind numbing, bone-crushing 459 rushing yards with a magnificent seven touchdowns – to catapult St. Thomas to its first state championship final since 2001.

Eagle Nation was frothing at the notion of seizing the state crown last claimed in 1996.

The furious Eagles struck fast in the big kahuna against Dallas Parish Episcopal, rallied for the lead late in the third quarter, only to fall 40-29 to the reigning TAPPS kingpins. Rejection. Heartbreak. A few minutes away. A few points shy.

Bold Vision Comes Into Focus

Stalling short scaling the championship summit was hardly the destination McGuire was plotting into his second season. There was difficulty gaining competitive traction the first 15 games despite weekly pyrotechnic offensive fireworks into the midway juncture of 2018.

Then in the raucous regular-season finale with the stakes stacked highest against generational rival St. Pius X, dual-threat dynamo quarterback Peyton Matocha ‘19 (Miami, FL) unleashed a gridworld of dreams and a scorching senior send-off at Hotze Field inside Granger Stadium that suggested life imitating PlayStation 5.

Matocha the maestro conducted one of the most memorable and improbable Eagle triumphs. His primo performance remains among the best and brightest in the series – 416 yards from scrimmage with seven touchdowns. The blitzkrieg bop included four scores in a whirlwind third quarter when Eagle Football captured control and rallied for a stunning 52-49 shootout that reclaimed the district crown, a fifth in seven years.

McGuire says “Peyton still tells me that was one of the best three days of his life.”

The Turning Point

Yet the St. Thomas traveling salvation show was placed in motion weeks before in a decidedly less delirious Monday post mortem video session that resulted in a season-saving line-up shift.

“We needed Josh Madden (class ‘19) to sacrifice and move from tight end and receiver to free safety where he had never played,” McGuire recalls with vivid clarity. “That adjustment would allow us to shift Daniel Coco (class ‘20) to strong safety where he could become more aggressive in the front seven.

“We were desperate for answers. Josh’s response was classic St. Thomas: ‘I was wondering when you were going to ask. Let’s go.’ That unselfish move was the start of something big to push us forward.”

In Every End A New Beginning

The often fierce Friday night lights of Texas high school football were never part of McGuire’s master plan after concluding his student-athlete career in 1988 playing defensive line at Division II Emporia State in Kansas. Four years later he earned his law degree from Illinois Urbana-Champange.

McGuire was working in the University’s financial aid office when a chance meeting dramatically altered his professional path. Following a one-time introduction to Scott Hamilton and a round of cold beverages, McGuire emerged as the defensive coordinator at tiny 2A Tolono Unity High School. Hamilton recently retired at the school after 31 seasons finishing among the state’s all-time winningest head coaches with 291 victories.

That largely anonymous launch led McGuire to a seven-year stay in Bartlesville, north of Tulsa and 20 minutes from Pawhuska. His wife Maria was rapidly advancing through the corporate heights at ConocoPhillips which necessitated a move with two small children to Houston where the McGuires “didn’t know a single soul.’

Rich navigated the public school coaching circuit until a pair of mothers at St. Agnes Academy suggested he target a varsity football opening at St. Thomas. Perhaps the cosmos had always been aligned.

Terms of Engagement

McGuire did great work elevating Eagle Football while always holding a firm understanding of the large world beyond scoreboard, state rankings, and  third-and-7.  He never coached for the paycheck or, certainly, the attention. He relished building the program with OKGs – Our Kind of Guys. That metric was judged more by love of football and service to the school than any cosmetic star rating.

Slowly, always surely, Eagles were compelled to risk, invest, and perform, and when gas was poured on that fire, it reached explosive in the locker room.

Even through the thralls and chaos surrounding Hurricane Harvey and the reaction to COVID-19, Eagle Football under McGuire’s direction won because it learned how to catalyze every advantage and how to tackle every challenge. The Eagles consistently, intently entered games to make a statement. Be the aggressor. Dominate physically and strategically, with poise and command. The emphatic message – play violently, with precision.

Break barriers and wills. Until the scoreboard signals triple-digit zeroes.

Last Call

Rich McGuire bled red and white while breathing goodness, discipline, and knowledge. Casual observers would be remiss for mistaking his personal charm and pleasant demeanor for anything less than raging competitive ardor. To the end he preached not only what was possible, but what was required. The weight of his influence within and beyond the St. Thomas confines will reverberate and resonate in his absence.