Spotlight: Coach Marissa Muniz
For Marissa Muniz, it’s her students and the sisterhood of her coaching staff that keep her going.
The girls athletic coordinator at Highlands, she has served the campus for 14 years, working with her staff of 12 coaches to impact hundreds of students each year.
“Having the group of female coaches that I have makes it that much more meaningful,” Muniz said. “The coaches on your staff become not just your coworkers, your friends, but they become your family. No matter what could be going on in my world outside school, I know I can count on them, and they make me want to be a better coach, a better person, a better coordinator, a better leader every single day.”
Her days move fast. Muniz starts her day supporting first period freshman athletics, observing, doing paperwork, and offering help as needed. After first period, she clears out the locker room and helps clear the halls in the main building, before heading out to support athletics at the feeder schools — Hot Wells, Poe and Rogers middle schools, and Democracy Prep at the Stewart Campus. When she returns, she helps out again in the hallway, covers her coaches if needed, and runs around to make sure students are in class before helping with 8th period athletics.
“That is when we have our upperclassmen and I normally go with basketball,” Muniz said. "Basketball is the one sport I’ve coached the whole time.”
Until basketball season starts Oct. 20, she’s been going back to Hot Wells in the afternoons to assist as well. Once the season starts though, she’ll be on campus from 6:45 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily, and that’s on non-game days.
But it’s worth it to her to provide support to the students, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been tough, but knowing that they have us and they lean on us makes all the difference in the world,” Muniz said. “Our kids wanted to be playing and you could just tell the difference overall what it has meant to them to have the ability to come back and actually participate in athletics.”
The basketball program is strong, with the girls making playoff appearances seven of the last 10 seasons, but the coaches really try to impress upon their players the importance of doing the right thing.
“Something that we talk to them about every day is integrity,” Muniz said. “That’s something we always preach, that we’re always doing the right thing, 100 percent of the time, because if you do the right thing, everything else will take care of itself.”
A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Muniz earned her bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M Kingsville and her master’s at the University of Phoenix. She had her own coaches along the way that made an impact on her.
“I had strong women that were my coaches,” Muniz said. “The way they interacted with us, with me, they were just very strong, very vocal, very encouraging. I’ve always known I wanted to be a coach and give back, but they just made it that much more.”
The relationships she and her coaches form with the Highlands athletes last too, as graduates will check in via siblings or Facebook to let the coaches know how they are doing. And always, she says, she will ask about college — are they still going to school?
“What keeps me going everyday with the students, and just being in the area that we’re in, is their resiliency,” Muniz said. “They’re just resilient. To me it’s just their ability to just get back up no matter what.”
Spotlight: Coach Byriq “BJ” Alzaid
Coach Byriq “BJ” Alzaid is all about collaboration.
Since Alzaid, the boys athletic coordinator, got to Poe Middle School this year, football games have become school-wide events. He visited various departments on campus, and recruited choir students to perform the national anthem, LOTC color guard to present the colors, and theatre students have volunteered to start a dance program. A teacher has become a DJ, playing music and calling play-by-play. Miller Elementary School sent cheerleaders.
“I’ve had teachers come up to me and say this is a great atmosphere,” Alzaid said. “I think the biggest thing that I get out of it, and our coaches and the students get out of it, is that there’s a collaboration of every department. I think the families are seeing that, and it’s exciting."
Alzaid, a San Antonio native, got his educational start at Collins Garden Elementary in San Antonio ISD before finishing his education in Harlandale. He served eight years in the U.S. Army and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Concordia University Texas. Now in his 14th year in education, he has spent the last four years in SAISD, starting out at Democracy Prep – Stewart before coming this year to Poe. And he’s been building bridges ever since.
“I said when I got here that my biggest goal was to build a culture,” Alzaid said. “That’s what we’re doing, we’re building a culture. It’s not about wins and losses. It’s about establishing a foundation where everybody’s really working together and trying to feel that they are a part of something.”
He’s also been working with parents. He started a parent newsletter, has a group chat, and parent meetings. He goes around and visits with parents after every football game, whether a win or loss.
“I also have to make sure that I communicate with the parents that we’re going to hold every student accountable, and though you’re always going to get some pushback at first, once the parents see that you’re in it sincerely to help the kids that they start offering their help as well, and that’s when the wheel starts to really turn. You can see that there’s going to be a difference.”
With football season coming to an end after Saturday’s homecoming game, Alzaid has set his sights to the future — both with other sports seasons and his students’ futures. A self-described basketball “junkie,” he can’t wait for that season to start Oct. 15, but has some plans in the works for all his athletes, including soccer and track, to hopefully see some college and professional level sports.
“Our goal is to let kids be able to see, ‘Hey this is how a college football game is, this is a professional basketball game, this is a professional soccer game,’” he said. "The kids need to see, ‘This could be you if you put your mind to it and if you work hard.’”
He and his coaching staff, LOTC instructor Sgt. Maj. Frankie Woods, social studies teacher Mark Monju, and Miller Elementary School P.E. teacher Robert Rodriguez, spend time in every practice talking to students about citizenship and possibilities for their futures.
“A lot of these young men are inner city kids, like me, that I know come from broken homes, and they need a father figure,” Alzaid said. “Our staff is very good. We try to really help the kids, guide them, mentor them, and just show them how to be a good citizen. We’ll have practice for about an hour and a half; we’ll teach them techniques, teach them skills, and then we kind of close off with some life lessons too, trying to make sure we do the right thing.”
Seeing the students respond, whether it’s greeting him in the hallway or sharing personal stories, is what keeps him going. In fact, recovering from a recent surgery, he still attended the game as a spectator, even if he couldn’t yet return to the sideline.
“For me, this is not a job, this is really my passion,” Alzaid said. “I have to pinch myself that I get paid to do this. I just want to make the impact in any way I can. If I can make an impact for one student, then I know, at least I did my job.”