Lexi Brooks was a nervous wreck when Leander Rouse head coach Joshua Mann asked her to become the first female Director of Football Operations in Central Texas.

Not because she didn’t think she was up to the job. Brooks knew she would excel in an organizational role. Tracking team academic performance and behavior, sending prospect sheets for college recruitment and controlling all gameday logistics from pregame meals to sideline passes? That was her wheelhouse.

But Brooks was anxious about entering boys’ athletics. She held off moving her desk to the male coaching office until the last possible moment, worried she wouldn’t be accepted.

After the 2024 season, she says she was nervous for nothing. Brooks had already done the heavy lifting of relationship building as the head boys track coach. The male coaches joked with her in the office, and she dished it right back. To the Rouse football team, she’s one of them.

She fit in so well Monday through Thursday that Friday nights were the only times she realized she stuck out. There, an opposing player would see her on the sidelines and do a dramatic double-take or make a comment, like, ‘What is she doing here?’

“I had to have tough skin, where I’m like, ‘They just don’t know. Whereas my kids know,’” Brooks said. “So I don’t take it personally. But I think my kids will take it a little bit more personally than I will.”

In those moments when she confronted what her biggest fear was in taking the job, she’d refocus on her why.

Riley Elrod is a sophomore at Rouse High School, a coach’s daughter. When she was younger, she used to walk out with the head coach side-by-side on game nights. Then, Riley was a ball girl. She would put the pads on and play with the boys if she could. In another time, Riley’s role with the football team would’ve ended when she reached high school. Coach Brooks has shown her it doesn’t have to.

Riley is a student assistant on Brooks’s operational staff, attached at her role model’s hip. She shadows Brooks during summer strength and conditioning. She manages the ball boys on Friday nights. Time will tell if Riley will grow up and make football a career. The important thing is she knows it’s an option.

“There are so many other coaches’ daughters and other girls out there who love the game, but what avenue is there for them?” Brooks said. “For me, it’s showing them that you can do the operational side. You can learn the recruiting side. There are even women who are coaching football now. Letting them see that this isn’t just a male sport. There is a place for you in it.”

Directors of Football Operations (DFOs) have become a mainstay in college athletics. However, in the high school ranks, coaches have historically divided all the program’s operational requirements among assistant coaches. 

Joe Willis was one of, if not the first, coach to bring the DFO to high school football. The idea came from attending the University of Houston’s practice before the 2015 Peach Bowl. After head coach Tom Herman addressed his team at the end of practice, he ceded the floor to his female DFO to discuss travel plans.

“I noticed it was a different voice,” Willis said. “It was a different type of attention that was given to her. Sometimes, it needs to be somebody that has a different voice. Because after a two-hour practice, who wants to hear more coaching, right?”

That idea planted the seed, but it didn’t sprout until 2019 while he was coaching at Colleyville Heritage. Willis had a coach leave with little time to spare before the season, so he hired Leslie Ferris, a teacher and cheer sponsor who’d been around football all her life, as his first female DFO. 

After seeing what Ferris could do, Willis went from not knowing he needed a DFO to not knowing how he operated without one. Once he left Colleyville Heritage for Crosby, he hired Callie Cameron. Under Cameron, the DFO became an umbrella term for all the different roles colleges have on the operations side but which high schools have to split amongst assistants. Cameron was essentially the program’s Sports Information Director, Recruiting Director and Academics Liaison.

Cameron was hired as Baylor’s Director of Player Personnel in June 2024. But her impact on high school football is rippling across Texas. When Rafael Thomas was looking for a DFO for his new staff at Mesquite High School, Cameron connected him with Saphire Cervantes, who most recently served as the Director of Recruitment and Media Relations for Woodville High School. 

Thomas calls Cervantes the biggest hire of his new staff. Coaches who hire a DFO must sacrifice an assistant coaching spot, but Thomas says the trade-off is a no-brainer for what Cervantes will do for the program. She will organize fundraising and team events, manage Mesquite’s recruiting website with updated HUDLs and player bios, and run the team’s social media. Basically, her job is to let the coaches focus on football.

“I think it’s going to look just like college (eventually),” Thomas said. “It’s going to be one of those deals every program has.”

The role is an excellent opportunity to hire females for several reasons. Some coaches point to their organizational skills. Willis cites “the female voice and respect for the gender as a necessary learning curve for young men.” One of the biggest reasons is that football, for the longest time, was a game enjoyed by everyone but was only available to one gender. 

“I think some coaches, like Coach Thomas, want to get females more involved because there haven’t been a lot of opportunities for us in football, specifically,” Cervantes said. “I think a lot of them, after becoming dads and having daughters who are a part of the game, they just want to know that there’s a future for their daughter, too, in the sport that they love.”

But the job is far from a handout. At the 5A and 6A levels, it’s become a necessity.

“I’ve had six coaches since Saphire got announced on social media reach out and ask these same questions you’re asking,” Thomas said. 

DFOs aren’t limited to the highest classifications. Cervantes worked at 3A Woodville, and Cierra Bernard is currently at Bay City. But, as of right now, these smaller schools cannot pay for the role. Cervantes volunteered for the football team while coaching middle school volleyball and basketball. 

Bernard’s role in the classroom helps her recruit female students who want to be part of the football program. She has a team of mentees who help her film all practices and games. Their work allows the coaches to study film without managing a film crew, and also gives Bernard the action shots and highlights she needs to run the recruiting department.

“All the work that people hate to do behind the scenes, that’s what I love to do,” Bernard said. “I honestly think that makes me stand out in this profession. You find so many people who don’t want to do the filming or paperwork or go and make sure that we have the meals taken care of.”