This week’s East Texas weather provides the perfect picture for what it’s been like for Bo Maines to be hired and welcomed as the new athletic director and head football coach at Elysian Fields.

It’s been nothing short of a whirlwind.

Maines enters his 23rd year in the Texas coaching ranks this fall. However, the longtime assistant coach and defensive coordinator with stints at just two places – Springtown and, most recently for the last 11 years, Azle– will be entering year one as a head coach when he steps on the field as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets in August.

One might wonder why a coaching veteran with over two decades of experience in Class 5A might end up at a place like Elysian Fields, a rural community in Harrison County that classifies as Class 2A. Maines sees the answer to that question as being nothing more than perfect timing.

“My family and I have always loved East Texas,” said Maines, whose family includes wife Leah, also an educator, and sons Dylan (18) and Gatlin (14). “We cruise around the state all the time and this has been an area we’ve always wanted to be in. My son was a starter for us (at Azle) since his sophomore year, but he’s graduating this year. It just seemed like the perfect time for a fresh start. We are excited to be here.”

Elysian Fields is pleased to find and bring in an established veteran coach to take the reins of its athletic department, according to EFISD Superintendent Monica Simmons.

“Coach Maines brings with him years of experience, a commitment to student development, and a passion for fostering both athletic and academic success,” said Simmons. “As the district moves forward, his leadership is expected to play a key role in elevating and expanding athletic opportunities for all Elysian Fields students.”

In an age where coaching has become somewhat of a nomadic profession, particularly among a vast army of assistant coaches on staffs that have turnover seemingly every one or two seasons, Maines has provided an example of stability. His first coaching stop, at Springtown, lasted 11 years from 2003-2014, and then he moved just down the road to Azle in 2014 as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator.

Maines directed a defense at Azle that helped the program go 72-50 in his time there, with 11 playoff appearances and four district championships. He also was the powerlifting coach as well as offseason coordinator with the Hornets, and served as the school’s character curriculum coordinator.

Twenty-two years at just two places is an outlier in coaching ranks nowadays, but Maines has a simple reason why he’s only been involved at two high school programs.

“My family and I are very relationship-based, and it’s hard to bounce around and build relationships and trust,” he said. “And, trust takes time, so we like to get in a place and build trust and build those relationships. When you get to that point, it’s kind of where you get to know people and have people do anything for you, and they know they can trust you and know who you are and where you come from. So, that’s really why we put a lot of roots down. It just hadn’t necessarily been anything other than that, just enjoying where we’re at with good people. And we’ve been fortunate – every place we’ve been has been really good people.”

Prior to beginning his coaching career, Maines spent four years in the United States Air Force where he served multiple forward deployments with Combat Rescue and Weapons. Immediately upon leaving the service, he began working on his degree at the University of North Texas, a Bachelor of Arts in History. He graduated Cum Laude and received UNT’s Outstanding Student in History Award in 2003.

The veteran airman and coach has predictably carried many lessons and traits he learned in the military into his coaching philosophy, but not along the lines you’d expect.

“A lot of people would instantly think, it’s a discipline factor and maybe the organization and leadership skills,” he said of transferring military life lessons into the coaching profession. “Those things have definitely factored into it, but what I took away from (the Air Force experience) was, the tons of places that we went to overseas, and just the different cultures and people that I got to meet and work with, hands on every day, was more life changing to me. It just made me realize that there’s a lot of people that are different, and they have different opinions. But essentially, everyone at their core, we’re all the same. We just want to be happy, and be secure. That’s probably been the biggest influence that my military career has had on me.”

Maines’ hire on Tuesday culminated a process that began in February, when previous EF AD/HFC Justin Crow announced his resignation for another coaching opportunity at Mineola. The Jackets broke a two-year playoff drought with a 7-4 mark that included a bi-district loss to Honey Grove, an eventual 2A state quarterfinalist.

He was officially named coach on Tuesday with approval by the EFISD school board, then he and his family were in Elysian Fields all day Thursday and into Friday, with a meet-and-greet with the community Thursday evening.

Coming from a Class 5A Division I program at Azle, the cozy settings of the pineywoods of southeast Harrison County might create culture shock. But Maines is not fazed by the difference in numbers; in fact, he’s excited about it.

“I found out pretty quickly that the kids are a lot like they are at Azle, and at Springtown,” he said. “Now, there’s a lot less obviously, because you go from a school with 2300 kids to a school with 250 kids or so. But that’s an advantage. There’s no reason for me to not know every kid in the school. That’s a very exciting aspect.”

Despite the difference in population, Maines sees many similarities in his previous stops and his new home in Elysian Fields.

“(Azle) is a very small town mentality,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s very similar to here. We were ready to slow down, tired of being around a big city and big area, and that’s one of the things we’re really looking forward to out here. We want to take our time and do things right and hopefully get this thing going around here. Hopefully they will want to keep us around for a while and we’ll all get to enjoy the benefits of it.”

The new coach won’t officially be in the office for another couple of weeks, but he is already making plans to hit the ground running. He met with all of EFISD’s athletes this week and will also be in the process of talking with current coaches and administrators. One thing he believes is that EF is in a good position with some things that have been done in the past, things that he hopes to be able to add to and build upon.

“(EFISD) has done a lot of good things,” he said. “But you know, anybody that comes in, they’re going to want to put their touch on things, and so there are some areas that we’re going to look to improve, and then there’s areas we’re already doing pretty well. So we want to emphasize the things that we’re doing well and then work on the things that we’re not.”

The crazy busy week for the new coach ended Friday, and Maines was looking forward to getting back home in Azle – with fresh video access to watch all of Elysian Fields’ 11 games from last season.

“This weekend, I’m going to be diving into a lot of film,” he said with an excited grin. “I’ve heard about some of these guys we have returning and there’s a lot of talent coming back on this team. I understand the community loves this, loves this football program, and there’s a lot of expectations. It’s become very centralized in Texas high school football, with four or five teams in every region that are really good, upper level-type programs. Then you have everybody else kind of fighting to just get their chance in there. That’s the kind of programs I’ve been a part of.

“And, that’s what really excites me about Elysian Fields. In Azle in springtime, we never had the best kids for sure when we stepped on the field. But what we did have was kids that would do everything we asked them to do, and they were well-coached. That’s what we will be trying to instill here, is have kids that will just work their tails off for us. They’ll do exactly what they’re coached to do.”

Maines expressed that desire in his first meeting with EF athletes, both boys and girls, in a meeting Thursday.

“I talked to the kids (Thursday) and told them, I’m not asking you to go out there and kick people’s teeth in,” he said. “I’m not asking you to go 10-0 in football. What I am asking you to do is put yourself in position to win in the fourth quarter. That’s all we can do, is put ourselves in a position to win and let things fall how they fall in that final quarter, that final inning. We have to create a program where our kids put themselves in a position to win, consistently.”

The whirlwind week has been exhausting, for sure, but Maines knows it’s nothing compared to the frenetic pace of a football season. The work doesn’t faze him, and he’s excited to get his feet on the ground in EF and start working on next season with his new team and student-athletes.

“I’m just excited to go to work, for sure,” he said. “It’s been great, really great. But my head is spinning, just meeting everybody and making plans. But that’s the biggest thing, just getting started. We have to get started to figure out who we have, player-wise and coach-wise, and just start getting rolling.”

Rolling like the wind.