Tom Esslinger named National High School Girls Track and Field Coach of the Year

In Tom Esslinger’s 12 years as Homewood High School’s head track and field coach, the Patriots have captured 10 state championships and nine state runner-up finishes.

Two of those titles were clinched this past school year.

After winning the state cross-country title in the fall, the Homewood girls claimed the Class 6A indoor and outdoor track and field crowns in dominant fashion. The team’s combined margin of victory at the two meets was 137 points — a lopsided tally rarely achieved.

Recently, Esslinger was recognized for his program’s accomplishments. The National High School Coaches Association named him its 2017 National High School Girls’ Track and Field Coach of the Year.

“I’m incredibly thankful, and thankful to be at Homewood,” said Esslinger, a U.S. history teacher.  “I very much realize that it takes a lot of factors to get something like this.”

But coaching success runs in his DNA.

His father, John, won 46 state championships as the head cross-country and track and field coach at Scottsboro High School. The elder Esslinger was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2011.

“I don’t know anyone better with the mental side of things, like in a sense of getting people to want to run through a brick wall for you,” Esslinger said of his father.

Esslinger competed at Scottsboro before pursuing a collegiate career at the University of South Alabama, where he twice earned all-conference honors as a decathlete. He graduated from South Alabama in 2003 and joined the Homewood coaching staff in 2005. His boys indoor track and field team secured the first state title of Esslinger’s tenure in 2006. 

He's never looked back. 

Esslinger credits his program’s sustained success to the support of school administration, the dedication of his coaching staff and the character of his athletes.

“It’s just kind of being in the right spot to work with some great athletes —  kids that work hard and listen,” Esslinger said. “To me, it’s always, as a coach, you’re trying to maximize the potential of what you have.”