Pool Ready to Make a Splash With LG Football

A Former NFL Player and Son of Two Historic LG Greats, New Leps Coach Embracing Opportunity in New Football Era Here

When Kyle Cooper got the job as new La Grange head football coach this spring, his first hire was Brodney Pool.

Nobody but Pool had the unique combination of elite playing experience (a college star at OU and then for seven years in the NFL), college coaching experience (at Baylor and the University of Houston) and some stellar local credentials (he is the son of two La Grange athletic legends, Rose Jones Brimmer and Robert Poole, who both went to college sports stardom at Texas A&I University).

It was an easy hiring choice for Cooper, who has made Pool his defensive coordinator.

“He’s a great man first and foremost,” Cooper said. “Then you look at the experience both as a player and a coach, and the fact that he was already here in La Grange. It was a God-send, really.”

Now, as the Leps start their first week of preseason practice, Pool is excited about a chance to help lead a team he had always wanted to play for as a kid.

Pool grew up in Houston where his mom was a legendary track coach at Westbury High School, and where her teams once won four consecutive state team titles. His mom later went on to be a track coach at the University of Texas.

Despite growing up in Houston, Pool’s summers were spent in La Grange in the Cozy Corner neighborhood, where his parents were from.

Interestingly, you may have noticed Brodney Pool and his dad Robert Poole spell their last name slightly different.

“They spelled mine wrong on my birth certificate,” Pool laughed. But it stuck.

Even when he was in the NFL, Pool was a regular in La Grange, a big participant and donor at local school and church benefit events.

“That’s from my mom,” Pool said. “She taught me to give back at an early age, and I take pride in that.”

Now he’s moved back here with his own family.

“It feels like everything has come full circle,” Pool said.

He grew up on stories of the great Leopard teams his dad was a part of as a running back, and the 1975 state title La Grange team his cousin Johnnie Johnson played on before going to UT and the NFL.

Pool has also been told he’s related on both his mom and his dad’s sides of the family to another La Grange NFL great – current Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins.

Had Pool gone to La Grange he would have been on the 2000 state title team and the 2001 state runner-up team (with Pool’s help that threepoint title game loss to Commerce might have been much different).

As it was, Pool starred at Westbury and was recruited by the Oklahoma Sooners, where he led the team in interceptions as a sophomore and in tackles as a junior. In 2005 he was drafted 34th overall by the Cleveland Browns. He played safety for the Browns for five years, then with the New York Jets for two.

“It was fun playing in the NFL, but it’s a business,” Pool said. “College and high school is more pure, kids are playing for the love of the game.”

After he retired from the NFL, he was hired as a college coach at Baylor for four years, reuniting with some of his college teammates. He then coached one year at the University of Houston, before moving back to La Grange with his wife Kady (a former collegiate soccer player at OU). They have two kids, a son, Blaze, 7, and a daughter Brooklyn, 10.

In an interesting connection to his wife’s former life as a soccer player, Brodney will also be the Leps’ head boys soccer coach next season.

But before then, Pool will turn his attention to helping the Leps to football success he always longed to be a part of.

Under Cooper’s direction, the Leps are going to play a fast-paced, pass-heavy brand of football like Cooper did last year at 3A Ponder, where his team led the nation, averaging 425 yards per game passing. But while Ponder scored a ton of points last season (44 a game), they also gave up a lot of points (55 a game) – and that’s where Pool hopes to make an impact.

“It comes down to being disciplined,” Pool said. “I want the kids to know that bad things will happen. They will give up big plays but you have to have a relentless approach, keep running to the ball, keep competing, all the other stuff will fall into place.”

Even at the age of 39, Pool still looks like a great athlete, and in addition to telling the young Leps how to do something, he’s still athlete enough to show them too.

“There’s probably guys faster than me on the team but I won’t tell them that,” Pool laughed.

“He’s played at the highest level, he has that street cred,” Cooper said. “And he’s a positive guy. We are going to put our defense in bad positions at times, and his positivity and having coached in that tempo system (at Baylor) will be really important.”

Up in the stands every Friday night, there will be a big cheering section of Pool’s family.

“I’ll have a big cheering section – as long as we’re going good,” Pool laughed.