Zajicek Catching Up in Return to Game

The jobs of the high school principal and head football coachand athletics director are two of the district's busiest posts, so when Sweeny's Tommy Zajicek had to do all three jobs at the same time in the spring, his schedule was filled and filled again.
Zajicek, 51, is returning to the sidelines this season as Sweeny's football coach after serving as the high school principal for the last six years. Prior to that, Zajicek went 85-28-7 in 10 seasons (1989-98) as the Bulldogs' grid boss and took eight of those teams to the playoffs.
He's the school's winningest coach.
A new look”It was pretty busy in the spring, but I feel like we made good progress on the field,” Zajicek said. “We were able to get the basics of our offense and defense in, so everything won't be totally new when two-a-days start in August.
“Our defense will be completely different. We're going with a 4-3 look, and we'll be an I-formation, one-back team offensively. We spent time in the spring trying to identify people, and we didn't get as far on offense as I would have liked, mainly because we had a couple of our quarterbacks in the baseball playoffs.”
One of those pitchers, all-state hurler Blake Williams, is a senior returning starter at quarterback. “We feel very good heading into the season with Blake under center,” Zajicek said.
Coming, goingJohn Scarborough is returning to Sweeny as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.
“We coached together for 10 years at Sweeny, and he's been at Brazosport the past few seasons,” Zajicek said. “We're extremely familiar with each other and our philosophies are very similar.”
Ron Stewart, who stepped down as Sweeny's boys basketball coach after 10 seasons, is Zajicek's new defensive coordinator. He takes over for Chris Miller, now at Brazoswood.
“It was a decision coach Stewart made,” Zajicek said. “He was at a point where he'd coached basketball for 10 years and he just felt like it was time for a change.
“Coach Stewart is also our girls track coach, and he had a state champion in Dorrie Thompson (Class 3A 100 and 200 meters), so he went from wire to wire last year.”
Zajicek recently elevated Bulldogs assistant coach Shannon Hooker to boys basketball head coach.
Health concernsHooker's wife, Audra, is Sweeny's girls basketball coach, but she could miss the 2005-06 season for health reasons.
“It's a good fit for us to have Audra and Shannon Hooker in charge of our basketball programs, but we might have to go with an interim coach for Audra this season,” Zajicek said. “The only negative side in having a husband-wife coaching team is that if one happens to leave and go somewhere else, if could affect two jobs. There's always that possibility, but I'm not worried about it. They're both quality people.”
Scott Carter (head baseball coach), Tom Holcomb (boys golf), Crayton Henry (tennis) and Chris Robbins (baseball assistant) are holdovers from last year's football staff.
“Most of those coaches (Holcomb, Henry and Robbins) were also on my (Sweeny) staff in the 1990s,” Zajicek said. “We felt pretty good about our work together this spring.