![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.jpg)
Football. Basketball. Volleyball. When people think of these sports, they often picture rabid fan bases and passionate players, but no one ever seems to remember the people who make it all possible–the referees.
Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, LISD will offer a new team sport officiating class. This course will allow high school students to learn about various team sports including volleyball, basketball and football and become certified as level one referees.
“The class originated from the idea that our ref organizations are shrinking,” high school athletic director Michael Quintero said. “We don’t have as many refs that are giving their time to high school sports. The Texas high school coaches association decided to make a class which basically allows juniors and seniors to take an elective course, become certified officials in team sports and actually go into the job world and officiate games and earn money along with an elective credit.”
Every school in LISD will offer the class next school year following in the footsteps of school districts across the state that have begun offering the program.
“There are schools across the state that have implemented this same thing,” Quintero said. “Numbers are showing that it’s working. The kids are taking the class and going out in the world and officiating and earning money to do it, so it’s starting to spread.”
Like other classes, the sports officiating class will also include tests and assignments. The coaches are currently working out the curriculum for the class which will be taught by one of the coaches.
“I’m mostly excited just because I love sports and I think it could be a fun class,” junior Ryan Daugherty said. “[I’m excited for] being able to use my sports knowledge for something fun.”
The new class will only be open to juniors and seniors, and there are no prerequisites necessary before taking it.
“I’m excited to learn about the rules of sports better,” junior Bennett Patton said. “I think it would be a fun class to take [in the] second semester of my senior year after football.”
Quintero said that there has been a high level of interest in the class so far and that he expects a lot of athletes as well as students who aren’t involved in sports to take it.
“I’m excited because it gives something new to the school,” Quintero said. “I think it’ll allow students who don’t necessarily play a sport to get involved in sports in a different way. I think it’ll also help some of our athletes to understand the difficulties of being a ref and how hard of a job it really is.”
