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Meet Nate Hooks: Head football coach at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy
Credit: Coach McNab

Meet Nate Hooks: Head football coach at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy

MELBOURNE, Fla. — The sounds of football are alive once again on the high school fields and Coach Nate Hooks, Head Football Coach at Holy Trinity is ready for this Fall season. He has been a coach of various sports for the last 32 years and is our Coaches Corner for October.

Coach Hooks is a product of Cocoa High School and went on to play college football at Tennessee Tech. The Cocoa High Hall of Fame Inductee started coaching after playing college football because he knew he would be good at it.

“The day I was hired I even went to my parents’ house and looked in their old school filing cabinet, and got a folder that consisted of plays, strategies, and ideas that I had been stashing since I was 10 years old. They were just marinating waiting on the day I’d be a Head Coach” says Hooks.

Credit: Coach McNab

Some of Coach Hook’s accomplishments before he became a local football coach were working with athletes on the track and also on the college campus. He had the opportunity to coach the 1996 Olympic Trials Pole Vault Champion Lawrence Johnson. In addition, he has coached the world’s fastest high school sprinter. Working as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Tennessee allowed him to train Peyton Manning. All of these moments were amazing to him but his favorite is working for his players and getting them college scholarship offers. He wants them to be in a position to better their future.

Being an effective coach takes more than knowledge about the sport but also about relationships. He works hard to make sure that his kids who want to go to college to play football or need football in order to pay for college, have offers for post-high school play.

Coach Hook says, “Just last week a dad of one of our players called and thanked me for taking his son to visit colleges and historical sites. He thanked me for getting him college scholarships and told me to keep teaching, showing, and making decisions for the kids. You’re his football dad.”

When asked about memorable victories, he says that there are three:

1. We beat MCC for the very first time at home, and for the first time in 8 years.

2. Beating a California State Champ that had won over 30 games in a row. They jumped out on us 28-7, and we ended up winning 31-28.

3. The biggest memory is winning the first playoff game in HT’s history. Dru Nickson, the Quarterback, threw a 39 yard TD to WR James Blackstrain on the game’s very last play. It was chaos on the field; their players were crying because they lost, and our players were crying because we won. It was a magical scene.”

Credit: Coach McNab

He feels he is different from other coaches because of his diverse coaching experience. His 32 years has included success as a D1 Head Track Coach, a D1 Strength & Conditioning Coach, a Sprint Coach of an Olympic Gold medalist & Olympic Silver medalist, a High School Head Track Coach, a D1 Football MVP & Team Captain, and the Holy Trinity Head Football Coach. These opportunities have given him experiences and contacts that a lot of coaches don’t have. “However, it’s the relationships with families, players, coaches, and connections across the country that I think is different,” says Hooks.

Lastly, every coach has a coaching philosophy that they like to adhere to or stick by. Coach Hooks’ philosophy is to achieve team and individual success by winning games and showcasing each player’s skills so that he can get them as many scholarship offers and options as possible.

He knows that performing at a high level in the classroom and on the field gives his players the opportunity to have their college education paid for and sets them up for a lifetime of success.

He hopes that with such success, more and more students and families want to be a part of HT Football, regardless of skill level. Everyone on the team, from starters to role players, will benefit from the comradery, experiences, and life lessons that football has to offer.

Coach Hooks believes that every team and season is different, but he has approached the last 3 seasons with the same goal of winning the Regional Semifinals. Holy Trinity’s team has reached the Regional Semifinals the last 3 years in a row. This is an amazing accomplishment because only one other team in Brevard County has done so! He closes with, “I’m very proud of the team, and this season it’s the Regional Finals!!!”

Good luck to Holy Trinity and Coach Hooks this season! You can find the Holy Trinity Football schedule on Maxpreps and follow HT sports at htea.athletics on Facebook and @htea.athletics on Instagram.

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