Randall High didn’t have to look far or take long to find its next baseball coach.

Monday afternoon, Canyon ISD announced that Taylor Allen, who was the head coach at Caprock in 2026, would be making the move across town and into a new district. Allen will take over as Randall’s next baseball coach, replacing Brad Propst, who resigned effective at the end of the school year.

This comes less than 11 months after Allen took over as Caprock’s head coach following 11 years as an assistant in both the football and baseball programs. When the job at Randall came open, it was an easy decision for Allen to put his hat in the ring.

“It’s one of the most storied programs in the whole Panhandle,” Allen said. “Around here the name Randall goes a long ways. It’s a proud tradition with high expectations and that’s a staple here. Having the opportunity to take this job is just amazing.”

School has been out for just over a month, but word of a vacancy at Randall attracted candidates near and far quite quickly. Already being close to the Randall campus physically worked in Allen’s advantage.

Canyon ISD athletic director John Peterson said after looking at all the candidates, the one who was the closest turned out to be the best.

“We did a search across the state of Texas and not just the Panhandle because we wanted to find the best leader for our kids,” Peterson said. “It’s the best place for our student athletes to be in these summer workouts so they can start developing relationships and start implementing (Allen’s) plan. We wanted to give coach Allen that benefit of the doubt for sure.”

Allen steps into a different situation at Randall than he did at Caprock. Playing in a rugged District 3-5A, Caprock has struggled in the last few years, and the Longhorns were 7-23 under Allen in his maiden varsity season.

Randall, meanwhile, is a perennial playoff team, having made the Class 4A state tournament as recently as 2023. Allen says he won’t try to fix what isn’t broken.

“I’m not here to reinvent the wheel,” Allen said. “I’m here to develop players more than anything and be a mentor to these young men and to promote the Randall name. You look at that trophy case and it’s just amazing what they’ve done in the past and I look forward to the future.”

Peterson thinks Allen’s steady hand is the right one to maintain Randall’s success on the diamond.

“We went through the process with coach Allen and he stood out, just the way he builds relationships with kids and community members,” Peterson said. “That’s important to our athletic program for him to continue the legacy that Randall has established before him and we have all the confidence in the world that coach Allen will definitely be the man for the job. We’re just looking forward to his leadership.”

Allen is now taking over his second program in less than a year. The circumstances are different even if the job is essentially the same. 

His time at Caprock he thinks will be valuable when he takes over in the Randall dugout.

“It was an honor being named head coach at Caprock for that season,” Allen said. “I know change is hard but after looking at all my options it’s something that I thought would benefit our family as a coach and an educator.”

Propst stepped down for family reasons

While Allen believes taking the job at Randall will benefit his family, Propst opted to step down for those same reasons.

Propst decided that he wouldn’t be returning next season during Randall’s bi-district series against Midland Greenwood which the Raiders needed three games to win. He officially handed in his resignation after the Raiders were eliminated by Lubbock-Cooper Liberty in heartbreaking fashion in the region semifinals.

What was going on at home became more important to Propst than what was going on at the field with his daughter Ella, 9 and his son Miles, 6.

“My daughter’s getting to the age where she’s starting tom get interested in sports and my son’s starting baseball this year and it was too hard on me when they asked if I was ever going to be at their games,” said Propst in an exclusive interview with Press Pass Sports. “I constantly had to tell them no, no, no and I couldn’t do that anymore.”

Propst, 38, is a 2007 Randall graduate and was a member of the school’s first team to reach the state tournament that year, and pitched at Oklahoma State and for the Houston Astros organization. He eventually became an assistant for the Raiders, and was named the head coach in 2023 after Cory Hamilton resigned following a 15-year run.

In three seasons at his alma mater, Propst recorded a 65-38-2 record. During that time, though, Propst wrestled with having his dream job and balancing spending time with his young family, and says his decision to step down from coaching took place over time.

“It was a lot of thinking and a lot of praying and discussing things with my family when the decision was made,” Propst said. “I’ll still get involved with baseball and probably find may way onto a field somewhere.”

Propst is young enough to get back into coaching once his children grow up, although he’s far from committed to anything at this point. He insists that he’s not burned out from the game.

“This year I had the most fun the last three weeks of coaching starting with the Greenwood series,” Propst said. “The kids just really battled and I think all the things we’d been preaching to them they really put that to display on the field.”

Propst says he has no definite plans about what he wants to do in the near future but says he plans to home school his children starting next fall.