Horn Reaches 250th Career Win

By Natalie Nicol

Messenger Contributor

LATEXO – The Latexo Lady Tiger softball team is making waves in East Texas, celebrating their final district shut out against the Slocum Lady Mustangs and ending their district play out-scoring their opponents 109-0. 

Not only was this game the confirmation of their back to back district championship, it was a milestone in Coach Greg Horn’s career as he and the girls celebrated his 250th career victory. 

Horn graduated from Southwest Texas State University (Texas State University) in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a minor in Writing. Twenty-three of his 24 years in coaching have been leading female teams. Horn has been a high school head softball coach 17 years of his career. 

While I’m writing this story, marveling at the outstanding accomplishments of my coach, I can’t help but think back to my freshman year (Coach Horn’s first year at Latexo). Needless to say, when I saw this bald- headed old man for the first time and heard he was going to be my new coach, I was slightly concerned; however, as I grew to get to know him, he has certainly left an impression on and off the field. Whether we’re celebrating our victories or mourning our losses, Coach Horn always knows how to bring the best out of his players and motivate us to play to our fullest potential. 

Coming in as a freshman, our previous year of Varsity high school softball we did not win a single game. Coach Horn came determined to change this with a promising group of young players. Because we were a young group, we had a rocky start to our season, but through Coach Horn’s leadership and guidance, we made the playoffs in the fourth seed and playing Somerville, a district champion team, in bi-district at home. Our team not only exceeded expectations, we run-ruled Somerville knocking the first place team out of the playoffs. We lost to Granger in the second round of playoffs, but had high hopes going into next year. My sophomore season we proceeded to exceed expectations, clinching a district championship and losing out to Thorndale, a regional semi-finalist, in the third round of playoffs. If you ask Coach Horn what he knows about softball, there is only one answer that will come to his mind… that he knows everything because he is a genius and these past three years with him have taught me that is absolutely true. 

Coach Horn has left a lasting impact on not only me, but all of the girls on the team. I know this article is celebrating the 250th win of Coach Horn’s softball career, but if you were to ask Coach Horn what was the most important aspect of the game was, he wouldn’t say the victories he’s had. It would be the profound, lasting impact he’s made in his players in the last 24 years and the priceless memories he’s made. 

As a player, the most important thing I’ve learned from Coach Horn is that no one player is more important than a team and our team this year is more ready than ever to step into battle with our coach and make him proud. Congratulations Coach on your 250 wins. We are looking forward to many more. You are doing a B-E-A UTIFUL job!