Dallas Samuell High School head football coach Steve Pierce is retiring after 27 years.
Pierce has been with the team since 1986 and has served as the head coach since 1997 — the longest of any coach in the Dallas ISD.
“I had decided last summer to go ahead and at least give it another year,” Pierce told The Dallas Express. “I kind of began to contemplate it some, actually, even before the 2022 season. I was kind of weighing things and had mixed emotions about it… but I enjoy it so much.”
The Spartans made 15 playoff appearances under Pierce’s watch, advanced to the area playoff round six times, and won five district championships.
While many point to his team’s upset of Highland Park, 17-14, in the 1999 bi-district round as one of his biggest wins, Pierce had another on his mind as he enters the next chapter.
“The biggest win would have been in ’98, my second year as a head coach, when us and [Dallas] Lincoln were always going head-to-head with each other as far as who was going to be the district champion, and playoff seeding, and things of that nature,” he told The Dallas Express. “We were able to pull off a pretty big upset of them toward the end of the regular season, and that propelled us into the playoffs.
“We came back and kicked a field goal with like 10 seconds left and edged out a 9-7 win that got us into the playoffs for the first time in a number of years.
“That was a really big stepping stone for the program, and it was almost like you could kind of just sense it. There was more enthusiasm and pride, and it kind of took off. We had a string of years where we had some really good years… I just felt like that was the catalyst.”
The 1998 Dallas Samuell team finished the season 6-5 with a first-round playoff loss to Sherman but followed it up with three consecutive seasons with at least eight wins each.
However, the Spartans have just 11 total wins in the past five seasons, something Pierce said slowly began to signal the end.
“That can wear on you a bit,” he acknowledged. “You work to prepare the kids and give them the best experience possible, and you want it to be positive for them regardless of outcomes.
“Sometimes you get to the point and wonder, ‘Am I the right guy? Am I implementing the right strategies?’ And so on and so forth. It’ll wear on you some, but even this past season, I still loved every day — putting on my shorts and whistle, going out to the practice field, and trying to get the kids prepared and motivate them [while] being enthusiastic with them and pulling for them.
“When the season was over, I really started giving it a little more serious thought.”
As he stepped away from the job he has had for nearly three decades, Pierce was proud of his work — on and off the field.
“What’s most prideful to me is when I have former players or even former students come back and tell me not just what a good coach I was, but how much I meant to them and some of the lessons that I thought them,” he told The Dallas Express. “Those are the things you cherish and take with you: If you know that you can go out and that you’ve had an impact and made a difference in a young person’s life.”
