New Rusk head football coach and athletic director Cody Welch. (Whitehouse ISD)

Rusk has hired Whitehouse defensive coordinator Cody Welch as its new head football coach and athletic director.

“The people I’ve come across throughout my career that have been from Rusk, it’s a place full of good people,” Welch said. “I’ve always watched Rusk from afar. I’m from East Texas, so I’m familiar with them. I know the type of kids they have. The ingredients are there in order to be successful in all aspects of an athletic program.”

Welch is a 2008 graduate of Arp High School. He played a year of football at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and a year at Mary Hardin-Baylor. Welch then returned to East Texas to graduate from UT Tyler.

He also worked at APEC.

“Bobby Stroupe taught me how to be a coach,” Welch said. “I worked for him since I was 15.”

Welch coached for his alma mater of Arp for a year before going to Bullard for four years, the final two as defensive coordinator. He then became the defensive coordinator at Pine Tree.

Welch has spent the past five seasons at Whitehouse — the first two as strength and conditioning coach and defensive backs coach and the past three seasons as the defensive coordinator.

In those five seasons, the Wildcats have posted a record of 30-24 with four playoff appearances.

“I’m looking forward to meeting new people and getting relationships with people in the community,” Welch said. “There are things I have been a part of that we have done well at different stops that I want to try to combine into one thing and make it my own. We want to apply those things and work every single day to be a little bit better than the day before. It’s about pouring into the kids and letting them know you care about them and care about their success on and off the field.”

Welch takes over for Thomas Sitton, who left to be the defensive coordinator at Henderson. Rusk went 27-26 in five seasons. The Eagles had made the playoffs in eight straight seasons before going 2-8 and missing the postseason this past season.

Welch and his wife, Autumn, have two sons, Rush (6) and Nash (2).