For Marissa Muniz, it’s her students and the sisterhood of her coaching staff that keep her going.

The girls athletic coordinator at Highlands, she has served the campus for 14 years, working with her staff of 12 coaches to impact hundreds of students each year. 

“Having the group of female coaches that I have makes it that much more meaningful,” Muniz said. “The coaches on your staff become not just your coworkers, your friends, but they become your family. No matter what could be going on in my world outside school, I know I can count on them, and they make me want to be a better coach, a better person, a better coordinator, a better leader every single day.”

Her days move fast. Muniz starts her day supporting first period freshman athletics, observing, doing paperwork, and offering help as needed. After first period, she clears out the locker room and helps clear the halls in the main building, before heading out to support athletics at the feeder schools — Hot Wells, Poe and Rogers middle schools, and Democracy Prep at the Stewart Campus. When she returns, she helps out again in the hallway, covers her coaches if needed, and runs around to make sure students are in class before helping with 8th period athletics. 

“That is when we have our upperclassmen and I normally go with basketball,” Muniz said. "Basketball is the one sport I’ve coached the whole time.”

Until basketball season starts Oct. 20, she’s been going back to Hot Wells in the afternoons to assist as well. Once the season starts though, she’ll be on campus from 6:45 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily, and that’s on non-game days.  

But it’s worth it to her to provide support to the students, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s been tough, but knowing that they have us and they lean on us makes all the difference in the world,” Muniz said. “Our kids wanted to be playing and you could just tell the difference overall what it has meant to them to have the ability to come back and actually participate in athletics.”

The basketball program is strong, with the girls making playoff appearances seven of the last 10 seasons, but the coaches really try to impress upon their players the importance of doing the right thing.

“Something that we talk to them about every day is integrity,” Muniz said. “That’s something we always preach, that we’re always doing the right thing, 100 percent of the time, because if you do the right thing, everything else will take care of itself.”

A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Muniz earned her bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M Kingsville and her master’s at the University of Phoenix. She had her own coaches along the way that made an impact on her.

“I had strong women that were my coaches,” Muniz said. “The way they interacted with us, with me, they were just very strong, very vocal, very encouraging. I’ve always known I wanted to be a coach and give back, but they just made it that much more.”

The relationships she and her coaches form with the Highlands athletes last too, as graduates will check in via siblings or Facebook to let the coaches know how they are doing. And always, she says, she will ask about college — are they still going to school?

“What keeps me going everyday with the students, and just being in the area that we’re in, is their resiliency,” Muniz said. “They’re just resilient. To me it’s just their ability to just get back up no matter what.”