Eli Reinhart’s journey from South Korea to Texas culminates in his first head coaching role at Hutto High.
FORT WORTH, Texas — From South Korea to North Crowley, Eli Reinhart’s journey to Texas high school football was extremely rare yet utterly predictable.
Eli was born in South Korea and adopted as a baby by a football family in small-town Michigan.
“There were a couple of Asian kids in the community but being a lot different than everybody, for the most part, was kind of the norm for me,” Eli admitted.”
Eli’s father, Dennis Reinhart, was the legendary head football coach for Montrose High School in Montrose, Mich. Over nearly three decades, Dennis won more than 200 games including two state championships (1998 & 2002).
On the morning of the 1998 state title game, Eli — then 4 years old — drew up a play design on a piece of paper and gave it to his dad.
“There’s a lot of scribble and probably too many men on the field,” Eli joked.
Dennis kept the illegible artwork of his adopted son in his back pocket, as Montrose went on to win the state title. Little did Eli know, his father then stored the drawing in a briefcase for safekeeping — for the next 26 years.
Eli spent his childhood and young adult life on the Montrose sidelines, as a waterboy and ball boy before later playing and coaching for his dad.
“It’s been a huge part of my development as a coach but also developing my love for the game and creating that relationship and that bond with my dad,” Eli explained.”
After a few stops in the college ranks, Eli returned to coaching high school football as the offensive coordinator at Anderson HS outside Austin, Texas, in 2021. One year later, he took the same role at North Crowley for a new coaching staff led by head coach Ray Gates.
Since then, the Panthers have gone 42-2 — including a perfect 16-0 campaign in 2024, in which Reinhart’s offense averaged 54 points per game.
How’s this for a full circle moment?
On the morning of the 2024 state championship game, Eli’s father gave him the play design Eli crafted 26 years ago. That night, North Crowley beat Austin Westlake, 50-21, to win the UIL Class 6A Division I state title.
The Panthers finished the season with a top three ranking nationally. For Eli, there was no better time to become a head coach for the first time.
In February, he was hired as the new head football coach and boys athletics coordinator for Hutto High School outside Austin.
Eli is motivated to succeed not just for himself but to help pave the way for other minority coaches in the future, as well as inspire the next generation of kids, especially those who look like him.
As Eli noted, “Getting more people or more kids in the Asian community interested in the game of football, and seeing more representation of coaches, I think would attract more kids to maybe explore those avenues.”
