By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
New Del Rio Rams head football coach Daniel Infante isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. He simply wants to bring a sense of community pride back into its high school football team, an anomaly where a town this size rarely has just one high school athletics program to support.
Infante is a product of the Rio Grande Valley. He graduated from Donna High School, attended Texas Tech University, accepted his first coaching job at his high school alma mater, served as the passing game coordinator at Mercedes ISD and then the co-offensive coordinator at Corpus Christi Veterans High School before returning closer to home to become the offensive coordinator at Sharyland in August 2024.
“I had admired the program from afar. Just the way they did things … from the outside looking in … when I had the opportunity to leave Corpus Christi Veterans and come home, joining them was a no brainer,” Infante said.
“When I got to the program they had been struggling for a few years. It wasn’t the program of old. I brought in my offensive scheme over there and it took off immediately,” Infante continued. “It was a little different for a lot of those guys though it was still a spread offense with some RPOs (read, pass options) and some other twists mixed in.”
Infante’s system fit Sharyland, and athletic quarterback Calvin Harris, like a glove. The Rattlers made it to the playoffs both years he was there, including a third-round appearance this past season. In his first year with Sharyland, the team averaged 393 yards of total offense per game. Last season, the Rattlers averaged 424 yards of total offense per game.
As for Harris, under Infante’s guidance the University of North Texas commit went on to set new school records for passing yards, total yards and touchdowns.
Infante considers himself a student of the game. He doesn’t like to look at football from just one side of the ball. Part of that is attributed to his high school playing days when he played free safety at Donna. His coaching career started on the defensive side of the ball, working with linebackers and the secondary before he decided he wanted to make a change.
“I was blessed to learn under some great football minds. I went to school at Texas Tech during the days of Mike Leach. I learned under Paul Reyes, who was a legendary offensive coordinator at Rio Grande City. I wanted to learn more about both sides of the ball because the more you learn, the more you’ll grow and I wanted to grow in this profession,” Infante said.
When former head coach Fiacro Ramirez decided to retire from education, that created a vacancy in the head football coach position. Infante decided to toss his hat into the ring, and part of that stemmed again from his high school career. He played under Dave Evans, who guided the Rams to the playoffs each of his seasons at Del Rio including their only unbeaten regular season in 1993, and Del Rio High record holder and legend Michael Brown, who joined Evans’ coaching staff Infante’s junior year. Because of those men, his knowledge of Del Rio football was already partially formed.
“I learned more about the Del Rio program before I started coaching,” Infante said. “I always had respect for Del Rio. When the job came open obviously it was very attractive to me. I always wanted to be a part of a more traditional style of football program, the whole Friday Night Lights idea of one town, one program. You just don’t see a 6A school all by itself in a town. This is a pretty attractive job, and I knew there was talent there, so I just went for it. I was blessed enough to get the opportunity to interview, and it was great to see how Frenchey (McCrea Jr., San Felipe Del Rio CISD athletic director) and I had so many similar ideologies.”
His offensive ideology will remain his, but Infante said he is in the process of bringing in an offensive coordinator. However, Infante will call the plays for now until he feels the time is right for his offensive coordinator to take over … once he understands the scheme.
“I got hired for a reason, and that was what I was able to do offensively. The numbers don’t lie,” Infante said.
One of Infante’s biggest challenges will be bringing back the enthusiasm that used to follow the Rams program both home and away. Del Rio has not had a winning football season since 2016 and has not been to the playoffs since 2022. Last season, the Rams experienced their first winless season since 1998. That drove plenty of discourse among fans, players and parents both in person and online about what changes needed to be made to get the program back on course.
Infante has been doing his part to be available to any and all interested parties. He’s made the rounds on local radio, held a meet and greet with the public and oversees a newsletter that keeps the public informed as to what’s going on with Rams football.
In addition, Infante said he plans on holding the program to a certain standard and give a little more responsibility to the players.
“The great teams throughout history are player-led teams and that’s why I want to empower them,” Infante said. “This will not be the old school mentality of belittling kids. This is a different generation of athletes now. This generation of kids responds differently.”
On the field, Infante expects a lot from his players. Off the field, he said he wants to you his experience and his connections to do what he can to help those players who want to play at the next level achieve that goal.
“I’ve been blessed to be a part of a lot of great programs over the last three years, and one of the things I’ve been able to do is interact with a lot of college coaches over that time. I’ve had the chance to speak with coaches from UTSA, UTRGV, and other schools. I wanted to learn more about the process, get more knowledgeable about things like the transfer portal to help our kids,” Infante said. “I’ve been able to get kids recruited to that next level. Three of my four wide receivers at Corpus went on to play at the next level including one at the Division I level. At Sharyland, we’re in the process of getting guys recruited as well.”
“I want to make sure we have the right athletes here. I’ve already discussed with UTRGV some of the guys who can play at that next level. I tell my players that In the end it’s you guys that control how you play on the field. Let me handle the behind-the-scenes stuff with the coaches. They need to know it’s all about their body of work in the classwork and on that field. They’re the ones who need to attend camps and get those performances on film,” Infante continued.
There are less than 100 days until the new season begins, and Infante isn’t just sitting back and counting the days down. He’s meeting with former players, current players and up and coming players to find out what changes they’d like to see, if they quit then why and what they feel the state of the program is. The point of it all – to bring back that sense of Ram Pride that helped fuel a trio of third round playoff appearances over seven years.
“I talked to kids in the program and they’re to build up this competition phase. Everyone wants to win. I’ve already had 15-20 guys come up to me and tell me they wanted to return. They all stepped away from football for a lot of different reason, but in the end they had the hunger to play again, and they understand what we are going to do here,” Infante said.
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Contact the author at drnhsports@gmail.com
