Stan Gideon Photo by Marvin Pfeiffer

By Marvin Pfeiffer
Contributing Writer

The Stan Gideon era of Alamo Heights High School baseball is over. The school announced last week that the baseball coach has turned in his resignation. Gideon, who compiled at 194-105 record in the past nine years as head coach for the Mules, has accepted a position at Justin Northwest, which is just north of Fort Worth.

He has mixed feelings about leaving Alamo Heights and the baseball program that he helped build here. The Mules reached the regional semifinals in 2004 and 2007, and reached the playoffs seven times under his guidance, but he felt that he was up for a new challenge.

“Alamo Heights officials knew, basically by the end of school, that I was looking to leave and was looking to go somewhere different if I could find something I liked,” Gideon said.

He considered Deer Park in Houston and Justin Northwest in the Fort Worth area as viable options.

“I put my name in for both of them, interviewed for both of them and did real well in the process,” Gideon said. “I came in second in the hunt for the Deer Park job, which was probably a blessing because we really like the Fort Worth area.”

Gideon had previously coached at Granbury High School, which is south of Fort Worth, prior to coming to Alamo Heights and he and his family really liked that area.

Justin Northwest, which had been a 4-A school in 2007, now participates in District 5-5A and is growing by leaps and bounds.

“They went from a school of less than 2,000 to a school of more than 3,000 in two to three years,” Gideon said. “It’s projected that they’re going to have that type of growth during the next 20 years.”

The school just felt like a good fit for him and too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“I felt like the Northwest job was definitely more of what I want to do and I feel like it’s a good job on a lot of different levels – teaching, coaching, and facilities. They’re twice as big as we are at Alamo Heights and they’re in a very competitive league.”

Leaving San Antonio is still a tough thing for the Gideons.

“We’re really looking forward to getting back to the Forth Worth area where we had come from but at the same time … San Antonio, living in San Antonio for the past nine years has been awesome and it was more than we thought it would be. We’re going to miss living here.”

He’s also torn by leaving the program at Alamo Heights, one which has flourished and has all but three players from last year’s regional semifinal team coming back.

“There’s one thing that you want to pride yourself in and that is you want to go to a place and make it better,” Gideon said. “That’s one thing that all educators and coaches want to do. I think that, beyond a shadow of a doubt ,you can look around at what’s happened here in baseball the last nine years and we can leave with our heads high.”

“In the last nine years, we’ve turned this into a real good baseball situation and the guy that takes over in the next couple of weeks will be much further along than we were nine years ago and that’s great.” Gideon said.

Although he’s leaving, he still feels that Alamo Heights High School is a special place.

“I think they have lofty goals and they can compete,” he said. “They want to be competitive on the regional and state level in everything they put out there – academics, athletics, fine arts – and I think that’s the kind of school that they have.”

The school has announced that Glynn Tschirhart, who most recently coached baseball for the past 12 years at San Antonio Southwest, will be taking over the head baseball coaching position for the Mules.

Tschirhart played shortstop at St Mary’s University and was a seventh round draft pick of the Atlanta Braves in 1976. His 1995 D’Hannis club won the Class A State Championship and his teams at Southwest have had quite a bit of success during his stay there.

“I’m passing down everything I had already scheduled,” said Gideon. “Glynn and I have known each other for quite a few years and that always makes it better. I do know that he’s a great guy and he’s going to do super things for Alamo Heights.”