Former UTSA quarterback Eric Soza was on track to become a college football coach in 2016 when his father, Chris, was hired as head coach and athletic director at Medina Valley High School.
After two seasons at the University of Houston, where he had an entry level job on Tony Levine’s staff as a quality-control coach in 2015 and a graduate assistant under Tom Herman the next year, Soza couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go work for the coach who has been the biggest influence in his life.
Now in his third season at Medina Valley, Soza is enjoying life as a high school coach and seeing his father every day.
“It’s been great,” Soza, 28, said Thursday. “Dad is my role model. He’s my hero. Being able to play under him was a blessing and now being able to coach under him is even more. God always has a plan for everything and I’m just blessed, very blessed, to be able to have him and be able to call him my boss. It’s awesome to see him every single day. Hopefully, he says the same thing about me. I don’t know.”
For the record, Chris Soza says the same things about his youngest son of two sons.
Chris and Eric Soza, who runs the Panthers’ offense, have Medina Valley positioned to make a run for the District 14-5A Division II title after it made the playoffs as a third-place team last year. Medina Valley, 5-1 overall and 3-0 in league play, hosts Uvalde (1-5, 1-2) Friday night at 7:30.
The Panthers, who have won five in a row since opening the season with a loss to Waco La Vega, are tied with Alamo Heights and Kerrville Tivy in the district standings with four games left on their schedule. After playing Memorial next week, Medina Valley ends the season with back-to-back games against Heights and Tivy.
Chris Soza, 56, always figured Eric would follow the family tradition and go into coaching. Soza’s oldest son, Justin, was on his staff at Beeville for two seasons and Robert Soza, Chris’ younger brother, has been a high school coach since the 1990s. He is currently on the staff at Canyon Lake, which is undefeated this season.
Whether it was on the practice field, on the sideline at games as a ball boy, or watching film at home with his father, Eric Soza grew up with football as the central part of his life. Both father and son have vivid memories of those early days. By the time Eric was an eighth-grader in Beeville, he knew more about the Slot-T offense his father ran than some of the Trojans’ assistant coaches.
“I remember I went to watch one of his games when he was an in the eighth grade and he’s checking off plays, audibling at the line of scrimmage,” Chris Soza said. “His coach told me, ‘Yea, coach, he’s got the green light. He knows the offense better than I do.’ Eric knew the terminology. I think he called the plays in the huddle a lot of times.”
Eric knew the Beeville offense so well that he stepped in and ran the varsity’s second unit as an eighth-grader in preseason workouts after a quarterback was injured.
“We needed a quarterback at the time because we were running two groups,” Chris Soza recalled. “Eric just jumped in there. He already knew the plays. He asked me after his eighth-grade year, ‘Dad, what do I need to do to have a chance to make varsity next year?’ I said, ‘Number one, you better bench 200 pounds. If you can’t bench 200 pounds, you’re took weak because varsity is different and I have higher expectations.’
“He got in the weight room and when we got back that summer for testing, he was benching like 215. We had another quarterback who was pretty good, but he wasn’t great. Eric competing with him and ended up beating him out.”
Now in his 23rd season as a head coach, Chris Soza has gone 166-96 during a career that includes stints at Mathis and Alice, his alma mater. He went to Beeville after eight seasons at Mathis and coached eight seasons at Alice before succeeding Steve Hale at Medina Valley in February 2016.
A 2009 Beeville Jones graduate, Eric Soza made the varsity as a freshman and was the Trojans’ starting quarterback for four seasons. He signed with Texas State as a senior and spent one year with the Bobcats before transferring to UTSA in the summer of 2010.
“One of the things I missed the most when he left for college was I realized that he was there for all of my speeches, pregame and after-game speeches,” Chris Soza said. “As a ball boy, he was always in the front row and I missed that. The first time I had a speech with my team, I said, ‘Man, my kid’s not here with me.’ He’s just a coach’s kid. We’re just very lucky here to have him on our staff.”
Former UTSA coach Larry Coker said on several occasions that having Soza quarterback the Roadrunners was like having a coach on the field.
Always the consummate team player and humble by nature, Soza always has taken praise in stride. Win or lose, he’s always maintained an even-keeled disposition. He has been the same as a coach.
“He knew what the expectations were when he went into coaching,” Chris said. “He was always around coaches and the game when he was growing up. He’s passionate. He loves this game. He loves kids. He relates very well to them. He’s compassionate. He understands. He cares. He’s knowledgeable.
“My gosh, he ran this offense for me at Beeville for four years. He’s been around the game with me since he was a ball boy. That makes it real special, plus he’s got so many good ideas, too. He puts a lot a little twist in there. He has a lot of good qualities. I think that the best thing is that he relates to the players. They listen to him, they respect him. He earns their trust. All those things you look for in a good coach.”
Eric said Medina Valley players laughed the first time they heard him address Chris Soza as “Dad” during a workout.
“The kids made fun of me but, hey, he (Chris) tells me, ‘I’m your dad. You don’t call me boss.’ It’s been great. It’s been awesome.’”
Eric and his wife, Audrey, have a daughter, Tatum, 3; and a son, Carter, 5 months.