Spring Branch ISD Featured News

When the world’s athletes gather in Tokyo July 23 for the Olympic Summer Games, a Spring Branch ISD assistant principal will be there to help coach Team USA, and to fulfill her dream.

Megan Watson, an assistant principal for sixth grade at Spring Branch Middle School in Houston, will serve as the Olympic Women’s Distance Coach for Team USA Track and Field.

“This is an exciting time for Team USA Track and Field and I feel so blessed to be a part in serving our U.S. athletes, coaches and parents as a part of USA Track and Field as an Olympic Coach,” Watson said. “Growing up watching the summer Olympics on TV grew my passion for track and field. Getting to watch the likes of Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell, Flo Jo, Jackie Joyner-Kersee was both awe inspiring and motivational.”

Watson said she wasn’t blessed with world-class athletic ability, “but I knew I wanted to be a coach.” She grew up in Hesston, Kansas, “a teeny tiny town outside of Wichita,” where she was a four-sport athlete in high school. She said she wound up at Baylor University “because I had read Grant Teaff’s book, “I Believe” as a freshman in high school and just knew that is where I was supposed to go to college.”

She ran track at Baylor for Coach Clyde Hart, who has coached nine Olympic athletes, producing 13 gold medals. “He had a profound effect on my desire to be a coach,” Watson said.

Watson has served as a head high school coach and head middle school coach in the Houston area and said “one of my greatest joys is watching a student athlete find and develop their potential through their involvement with track and field and their teammates.”

Years ago, when she was asked to write down a lifelong dream, Watson said she dared to write “Track and Field Olympic Coach. That dream was never spoken or shared with anyone, but it did guide and drive my desire to learn and grow as a coach.”

“This opportunity to be the Women’s Olympic Distance Coach is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, but it is a greater testimony to those who have taken the time to share their knowledge with me, guide me, and believe in me throughout my career,” Watson said. “It is a blessing and privilege to serve our Olympic athletes and Team USA in Tokyo as the Women’s Distance Coach.”