Rowdy Freeman named new head football coach to lead Caprock

Amarillo ISD didn’t hesitate after the departure of Dan Sherwood to Randall on Monday, by acting immediately and promoting associate head coach and special teams coordinator Rowdy Freeman as the new head football coach during a press conference on Tuesday.

Freeman will be officially approved during an Amarillo ISD school board meeting on June 19.

Freeman is a homegrown coach built from the AISD system. The 38-year-old Panhandle High School graduate has spent 15 years in coaching spending eight of those years at Bowie Middle School then the last seven at Caprock where he was most recently the associate head coach and head girls track coach.

Freeman also comes from a great football tradition as the grandson of Texas Panhandle legendary coach, Stocky Lamberson.

“Coaching has been in my blood my entire life,” Freeman said. “I was made for this. I was on the sideline when my grand dad (Stocky Lamberson) was the head coach at Randall and at Borger. From the time I came on at Bowie Middle School and learned from Brandon Sanders, I’ll just be forever grateful to him. He taught me how to be a man, and what it took to succeed. I worked under Seth Parr and Dan Sherwood who taught me the managerial side of things. I will forever be grateful on the impact he made on my life. I’ve been waiting on this for 15 years.”

Amarillo ISD athletic director Brad Thiessen said this was an easy decision. Thiessen has been following Freeman’s career and knows he’s the perfect fit to lead the Longhorn program.

“I’ve watched Rowdy for the past 15 years,” Thiessen said. “What I really saw is when he was the head coach at Bowie Middle School, we saw a turnaround there. We saw kids get excited and they won the city championship. Then he came to Caprock, and those same relationships start to build. He became the girls track coach and the numbers went up and girls started to come out. He’s a natural program builder.”

As for what to expect from Freeman leading Caprock, expect the same hard-working vision that’s been laid down.

“We like what we’ve built here at Caprock,” Freeman said. “I don’t foresee a lot of changes on the day to day. We just want to this program better and take it to levels that I haven’t seen in the 15 years I’ve been involved. You’re going to see a team that plays hard and is well coached. I think if we do that we’ll end up where we want to be.”