Last week was historic for the Levelland Tennis Pack as the senior class earned their 1,000th total win and Head Coach Jeffrey Braziel earned his 100th career win as the Lobos coach.
The seniors reached their achievement last Tuesday in an away match against Brownfield and Coach Braziel reached his last Saturday at home against Lamesa.
The two senior captains, Daisy Perez and Nathan Ellis, both talked about the significance of the 1,000-win milestone for their class.
“It means a lot because that number, I feel like it doesn’t even come close to the amount of hard work our team puts in and the bonds and memories we’ve made,” Perez said. “1,000 wins is a big number, but we’ve worked so hard for it every single day for these past five, six years. It feels good to finally have that recognized.”
Ellis reciprocated the same message of their hard work while also taking pride in the fact it’s not just an individual, but the whole class being able to shine.
“It’s an honor to have a class like this. This group, it’s been a special thing,” Ellis said.
It is a special group, and they’ve accomplished an extraordinary amount of wins by their team camaraderie and being so closely knit.
“They mean a lot to me because we’ve grown up together,” Perez said. “We’ve seen each other through every phase in life. We’re here after school, 24/7, we see each other more than we see our own families. It’s more than a team. It’s like a family.”
Both Perez and Ellis credited Coach Braziel not only for building that type of culture but also showing intentionality in the way he coaches every kid and being exactly what they need.
They attributed their success in part to his coaching guidance and level of care, which Perez compared to that of a parent and based on his comments on their 1,000th win, she’s not far off.
“Man, this is a really special group. They’ve been working so hard since they were freshmen. They’re always striving to get better and to continue to improve, and to put everything they have on the court,” Braziel said. “The thing I always tell them is ‘it’s progress, not perfect.’ We want to show progress every day, and they really do live by that term. It wouldn’t surprise me if every kid in this class went out and did something amazing for the world. Them winning 1,000 was just huge, and the way they did it in a close match with 11 tiebreakers, and being able to pull some of those out.”
All Coach Braziel wanted to talk about was his senior class’s 1,000th win and how awesome they are, dismissing his own great milestone achievement.
And he was too humble to talk about his 100th win with the program on his own, but he was also too nice not to answer questions about his achievement.
“I’m really excited about it. It’s really awesome that I was able to achieve 100 wins,” Braziel said. “But for me, the wins are cool, they’ll come, but I really do enjoy getting to see the accomplishments of the kids. I couldn’t do it without them, I’m not the one that gets to go out on the court and play the match, without them I legitimately couldn’t achieve 100 wins. It’s a big accomplishment for my career, but for me, it’s more about the kids and what they can do.”
Coach’s answer shows exactly why his program is successful and why his athletes care so much about him because his mindset is them before him.
And while he may be dismissive of his 100th win, his athletes gave him the praise he deserves.
“I’m super proud of him, he deserves every bit of it,” Ellis said. “He’s worked his tail off with our class and any other class, to get that 100 wins with us back-to-back with 1,000 wins reflects how much he puts into the team. I think that 100 wins is really special for him. He’s not really ever a very emotional guy, he doesn’t really ever get excited or cry, but you could tell when we were celebrating that he had a special smile on his face.”
That last line just further affirms that he’s an athlete first coach as his kid’s happiness sparked his joy in his 100th career win.
Coach is not only winning, but making a lasting impact on his athletes, which was furthered expressed when Perez shared her greatest memory of a win.
“There’s this one match where it was just a mental battle, and I remember Braziel came on court, and he told me ‘Take your mind off of everything else.’ He just sat down, talked to me and he just let me calm down, and helped me get that fight back,” Perez said. “I really think that memories like that just remind me we have such a good coach.”
Coach Braziel will undoubtedly go down as one of the all-time greats in Levelland tennis history, and so will this senior class of athletes.
Congratulations to the class of 2026 players on their 1,000th win and Coach Braziel on his 100th win with the program, the Levelland community is proud of you.