After 25 years as a head tennis coach with Boerne ISD, Joey Cantu felt it was time to move on.
Cantu is going back to the town he grew up in and recently accepted a job with Pearsall ISD to become the school’s athletic director.
Cantu said he’s always aspired to become an AD and received his chance when Pearsall Superintendent Dr. Jodi Spoor, a former principal at Champion, called and asked if he was interested in the position.
“One of my dreams was to be an athletic director, but what tennis coach ever gets that opportunity?” Cantu asked. “It was an opportunity to go back home and make an impact. To help the community that helped me.”
The previous Pearsall AD was also the head football coach, but Spoor separated the two positions and Cantu’s first order of business as the new athletic director will be to hire a football coach, something he hopes to have accomplished by spring break.
Cantu graduated from Pearsall High School in 1994 and still has family in the area, including his parents. After graduating from college, Cantu returned to Pearsall and was the tennis coach at the high school for 2.5 years.
He left there and became the head tennis coach at Boerne High, hired by then principal Sam Champion. Cantu served as the Greyhounds tennis coach from 2001 to 2008 and then moved over to Champion when it opened in the fall of 08.
Cantu, who was recently inducted into the Boerne ISD Hall of Honor, had been the Chargers’ only head tennis coach until now, and has more than 400 career victories under his belt.
Cantu’s wife, Kristin, an assistant coach with her husband, will lead the team this spring, which started in late January at the A&M Consolidated tourney in College Station. They’ll evaluate the position after the spring season.
Cantu’s oldest daughter, Kayden, graduates this spring and will play tennis at Texas Lutheran next year, while their other daughter, Khloe, is a freshman at Champion.
At the end of the school year, the family will decide if they’re going to move to Pearsall and let Khloe graduate from there or if they’ll stay in Boerne, and Joey will just commute the 80+ miles each way.
Joey has the chance to stay overnight at his parent’s house if it’s a long day and said he’s going to enjoy spending time with them and getting acclimated to the new job.
“Both my parents are still alive, they’re both in their 80s and I get time to spend with them,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that need to be done here (in Pearsall), there’s always something to do.”
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