Westlake High School (Texas)

Westlake "The Best-Lake" High School
Address
I heard he does... near Austin , Travis , Texas 78746 United States
Coordinates	Seriously, he has a huge package?
Information
School type	Public high school
Motto	Once you go Behrens you don't go back!!
School district	Eanes Independent School District
Superintendent	Dr. Nola Wellman
Principal	Linda Rawlings
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	2,442 (2008)
Language	English
Mascot	Chaparral
Website	http://www.whschaps.com/

Westlake High School is a school in unincorporated Travis County, Texas in the Eanes Independent School District. In 2008, it was ranked 52nd on Newsweek Magazine's Top 1000 Public Schools list.

Though located outside the limits of the surrounding cities by a matter of yards, Westlake High School is the lone high school in the Eanes Independent School District and serves West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, parts of Southwest Austin, and parts of unincorporated Travis County. The school was established in 1969 and was opened in 1970.

Academics

Statistics

Under the College Board Advanced Placement (AP) annual ranking, Westlake consistently ranks in the top 50. In 2005, 82% of Westlake students taking AP tests scored a 3 or higher. Of the 2005 senior class, 84% of students went on to attend a four year university, and another 10% attended a 2-year community, or junior, college/technical school.

AP courses

Westlake's academic programs include an extensive list of AP courses, as well as courses such as Graphic Design, national award-winning Journalism, Robotics, Technical Theater, Choir, Band, Jazz Band, Orchestra, Computer Science, Spanish, Latin, French, German, ASL, and Chinese. AP courses include Human Geography, Government, Environmental Science, various foreign languages, and other academic courses. Westlake also has an Independent Study Mentorship program, "Ready, Set, Teach" program, and Health tech, among other special programs.

Extracurriculars

General information

"Rigor, Relevance, Relationships" is Westlake's motto brought about by principal Linda Rawlings and based on the Model Schools Initiative.

Westlake also offers many extracurricular activities. Some of these specific programs include: Film Production, The Westlake Technical Entertainment Crew, The Hyline Dance Team, Cheerleading, Band, Athletics, Chess Club, UIL Academic Competitions, Future Entrepreneurs of America, CLA, Mu Alpha Theta, National Honor Society, Choir, CUTE (Cleaning Up The Environment), Cultures of the World Club, Chinese Cultural Club, PASF Spanish Club, Eco-Action Club, and the Computer Club.

Orchestra

The Westlake High School Orchestra has consistently achieved highly under the direction of James C. Edwards. The orchestra program currently has three full orchestras competing in UIL each year, and all three consistently return top scores. The Symphony Orchestra was recently runner-up to Plano East Senior High in Breckenridge, Colorado for the Breckenridge Blast Music Festival. Students are routinely selected for the Texas All-State Orchestra, through taped auditions requiring etudes and orchestra excerpts.

Band

The Westlake High School Chaparral Band has been named the Texas State Honor Band three times (AA, AAA, and AAAA) in its 30-year history. The Band has consistently earned University Interscholastic League (UIL) Sweepstakes trophies for superior performances. The Band marched in the Rose Parade in January, 2003 and performed in Carnegie Hall in March 2005 and April 2009. The band has traveled throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and China to perform at various clinics and festivals and has received numerous awards.

A select group of Chap Band student musicians performed at the bi-annual conference of the internationally-recognized World Association for Symphonic Bands (WASBE) in Cincinnati, OH in July 2009. The invitation to perform at WASBE is the first ever extended to a high school band organization.

The Westlake Marching Festival, organized first in 1977, has become recognized as one of the major marching competitions held in the state with awards presented for excellence in Musicianship and Program Performance along with trophies for Best Color Guard and Drum Line Performances. Held the second Saturday in October each year, the Festival draws top bands from around Texas in all school classifications.

The 2008 Westlake Marching Band made history by performing in the bi-annual State 5A UIL Finals Competition, becoming the second band in the history of Westlake High School to achieve this honor. In 2010, the band repeated this accomplishment and placed in the top 10 of the 50+ 5A school bands competing in the State Finals.

In Fall 2010, the Band numbered over 260 members, the largest in its history.

Theatre program

The Westlake Theatre department has received many honors and awards, and many alumni of the department go on to pursue careers in theatre or theatre-related fields.

A typical season for the department consists of either one or two fall plays, a UIL One-Act show in the spring, and three Student-Directed plays at the end of each year. All fall and UIL shows are directed by Michael Harlan, and are Student-Directed when noted otherwise.

Past shows

2008–2009
Idiot's Delight
The King Stag
Three Sisters (dir. Jonathan Dahm)
The Shadow Box (dir. Matt Stellato)
No Exit (dir. Mia Hines)
God's Ear (dir. Jackson Wimberly)

2009–2010
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Westlake also had a very successful improvisational theatre program in the past.

School newspaper

The Westlake Featherduster is an award winning student newspaper of Westlake High School. The Featherduster was founded in 1969 and is currently advised by Deanne Brown. The Westlake Featherduster and the journalism program at Westlake High School are widely acknowledged as leaders in scholastic journalism. Many former students of the program have continued into careers in professional journalism, including Andrew Loehman (photography) [1], Corrie MacLaggan (print journalism) [2], and Kevin Dunn (radio) [3].

Technical Theatre

General

Westlake High School, among many things, has one of the most extensive Technical Theater programs (Website). The program includes different skills to the "behind the scenes" part of all of the shows. Some of the skills included in this is construction of sets for drama and choir (musical), lighting design, sound and moving/ automated lighting. The program is known as the Westlake Technical Entertainment Crew, shortened to Westlake TEC. There are four classes in this program that students may go through. The first is known as just Tech 1, going up through tech three. However, after the second year if a student chooses to they may go strait to production instead. Production is a class that meets only once a week for less than a quarter of a period.

Equipment

The Crew in the Performing arts center at Westlake includes many things. The sound system is a three array system that is controlled by the Yamaha PM3500 large format analog mixing console. The PAC also has two Yamaha PM5D consoles that are occasionally used. One is used for the Television Broadcasting (see below) and one is used as a monitor console. The line array system replaced the old system which was in a cluster. The Line array was set up by Meyer Sound. The lighting used consists mostly of PAR cans and Ellipsoidal Reflector Spots (ERS) fixtures for still lights, and there are many different moving lights used. The ERS fixtures are all ETC Source Four fixtures. Some of the PAR cans are were made by local companies, the rest of them are ETC Source Four PARs. There are also Fresnel fixtures used but these are not as common. Included in the moving lights are 5 Alpha Washes (Fresnel), 14 Vari-Lites (ERS), 4 X-Spots (ERS), 8 Cyberlights (ERS), 8 Techno-Beams (LCD) and Cyc lights (LCD). The cyc, or cyclorama, is a cloth style cyc that is lit from both the front and the back by LCD lighting Fixtures. The moving lights are programmed using the Road Hog Full Boar lighting console.

Television Broadcasting

Off of the Technical Theatre program is a side program students may take. The Westlake Television Broadcast Crew, films every varsity football game with professional equipment. The crew is also responsible for the filming and editing of all of the major productions. Among these include the Black Box Theater Drama Department production that is shown around Thanksgiving. In the WCPAC (Westlake Community Performing Arts Center) there are four major shows recorded that are filmed and edited annually. The first is the one night event of Battle of the Bands, which is done sometime early in the second half of the year. The next largest one is Zenith, where different groups come in and perform routines of dancing music,and one person in the TEC program creates a light show using different lights and a moving light console. The second largest is the Nutcracker Spectacular performed every year. The largest show is the musical which is a second-semester performance. The most notable of the productions is the 2010 production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast which took more building and practice hours than normal productions.

Athletics

Football program and tradition

Westlake's football team has at times been one of the elite teams in Texas. Ebbie Neptune was the head football coach from 1982 to 1986. Under his leadership the Chaps went 39-17-1. He stepped away from his position as head football coach to focus on his duties as athletic director in 1986. Once Ron Schroeder took over for the 1987 season, the team emerged as a perennial power in Texas high school football. Derek Long, who took over for Ron Schroeder at the beginning of the 2003 football season, retired following the 2008 season. Darren Allman was hired as the head coach/athletic director in late February 2009. He was the head coach/athletic director for his alma mater, Odessa Permian, the last four seasons. He turned around the tradition rich Permian program, the subject of the book, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, and subsequent feature film Friday Night Lights, taking them to a 12-1 record in each of his final two seasons.

Under Coach Schroeder the team made the UIL 4A State Title Game in 1990. After moving to Class 5A, the team made the State Title Game in 1994, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2006, and 2009. 2006 under Dereck Long, 2009 under Darren Allman. In 1996, Westlake won its first, and only state championship. They beat an Abilene Cooper team by a score of 55-15 for the 5A Division II state championship. Cooper was led by future NFL runningback Dominic Rhodes. The Chaps were led by future Purdue standout and eventual Super Bowl XLIV-winning quarterback and MVP for the New Orleans Saints Drew Brees. The game was played on February 7, 2010 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

The 1996 16-0 season was Westlake's only undefeated season. Drew Brees was backed by a powerhouse of senior talent. His go-to guy that title year was Ryan Read, who set the Texas all-time single season receptions record. Both were protected by a stalwart line including current NFL player Seth McKinney. The previous year, Brees had the services of Westlake's all-time leading rusher Ryan Nunez at tailback. Unfortunately, that year Brees tore his ACL in the 3rd round of the playoffs versus Alice, ending what would have been another title chance.In 2003, Coach Schroeder's former Assistant Derek long took over as head coach. 3 years later, him and Nick Foles were able to battle their way to the state championship. Unfortunately, the chaps lost to the Southlake Carroll power house 43-29. The Chaps also made it to the 2009 Class 5A Division 1 State Championship on the shoulders of quarterback Tanner Price and Center Brandon Behrens. Coming up short on the final play in overtime, the Chaps lost 41-38 to Euless Trinity.

Chaparral Stadium (football stadium)

Westlake Chaparral Stadium at Ebbie Neptune Field is a high school football stadium located in Austin, Texas that serves as the home field of the Westlake Chaparrals Football Team. The Stadium opened in 2002 with a 21-10 victory over the Westwood Warriors. Since its opening, only six visiting teams have managed to walk off the field with a victory, two of which were in the 2007 season. In 2001, the stadium had a Daktronics video message board installed. The Chaparrals have lost Three regular season home games at New Westlake Chaparral Stadium (Austin and Bowie in 2007 and Bastrop in 2009). Since the start of the 1990 season, Westlake has an 96-8-1 record when playing at Home (Old and New Chaparral Stadium).

Chaparral Stadium also serves as the home of the Westlake Women's and Men's Soccer Teams and annually hosts the Westlake Marching Band Festival.

The Chaps also made it to the 2009 Class 5A Division 1 State Championship on the shoulders of quarterback Tanner Price and Center Brandon Behrens. Coming up short on the final play in overtime, the Chaps lost 41-38 to Euless Trinity.

Soccer

The Chaps men's soccer team has always been incredible, except for the two years under head coach Ronnie Michaels. Coach John Campbell has helped return them to their previous glory with the 2009-2010 team returning to the state tournament for the second time in school history. The last time the Men's Soccer Team made it to the Championship was in 1983. The Women's Soccer Team last went to the State Championship in 1996 where they lost 2-0 against Dallas Highland Park. They last went to the State Tournament in 2007 with Coach Jenny Aldrete where they lost in the semi-finals 1-0 against Houston's Deer Park.

Baseball

The baseball team has won two state championships. The first was in 1980. Future major leaguers Calvin Schiraldi and Kelly Gruber were on that team. The Chaparrals won the coveted state championship once again in 1984. The majority of those senior players went on to college with scholarships provided from their performance on the field. In addition, the team boasts another major leaguer; former AL Rookie of the Year Huston Street played 3rd Base and pitched for the Chaps.

Golf

The golf team does consistently well. The boy's team has been district champions every year since 1980 except for '88, '04, and '06. They have made it to the state tournament every year since 1980 except for '88 and '06. The Chaps have won the State Tournament 6 times, including back to back wins in '09 and '10. The current head coach is Callan Nokes and the assistant coach is Lane Grigg. The girl's team is also consistently good, with 10 straight district titles. They also won their first state tournament in the 2010 season. The current head coach is Chuck Nowland.

Tennis

The tennis team has played for the UIL Team Tennis state championship eight times, taking home the title four times. Most recently, they captured the 5A state crown for the 2007-2008 school year. Over the years many players have gone on to play successfully at the collegiate level.

Cross Country

The both the boy's and girl's cross-country teams have been highly ranked. The girl's cross country team won the 2A State Championship in 1975, 3A in 1976, 4A in 1977, 1978, and 1985, and 5A in 1990.

Wrestling

The wrestling team has quickly become strong competitor in the Texas wrestling scene, placing 5th at the State dual tournament under Captains David Kapsner and Grant Miller in 2008 and 3rd in the state in 2009 under captains Alex Hershey, Neils Hazen, and Grant Perry. Westlake also has 5 district titles and 7 state placers among the short time the program has been enacted.

Notable alumni

Westlake High alumni include:

• Drew Brees, 1997, NFL Quarterback and Super Bowl XLIV MVP
• Kelly Gruber, 1980, MLB Third Baseman
• Seth McKinney, 1997, NFL Center
• Chris Mihm, 1997, NBA Center
• Calvin Schiraldi, 1980, MLB Pitcher
• Huston Street, 2001, MLB Pitcher
• Scott Spann, 2006, Olympic Swimmer, holds 5A state record in the 100 yd breast stroke
• Paul London, 1998, wrestler