One morning, I awoke to a slew of messages on my baseball group chat. As I groggily scrolled through the texts trying to understand the commotion, I clicked a link to an X post. What I saw horrified me: “Texas homeschool baseball coach is a convicted child predator.”
Tommy Whiteman was the head coach of the Texas Home Educators Sports Association (THESA) varsity baseball team, a Christian homeschool team that came to St. Mark’s on March 5 for a regular-season game against the Lions. Whiteman is also convicted of online solicitation of a minor, listed on the Texas Sex Offenders Registry, and was found guilty of domestic violence and assault. He walked onto the school’s campus without THESA informing anyone in the Lions’ baseball program or the St. Mark’s administration of his prior issues.
Homeschool sports programs don’t have to follow the same standards that public and private schools do. In Texas, all public schools and a few charter and private schools are part of the University Interscholastic League (UIL), while most private schools are part of the Texas Association of Private and Patriarchal Schools (TAPPS) or the Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC). These associations govern school extracurriculars, including athletics, to make sure all teams have an even playing field and that students can compete in safe environments, but THESA, along with most other homeschool teams, operates as its own independent program without oversight.
Whiteman’s history would have disqualified him from coaching any team in one of these organizations, which have strict policies preventing individuals with sex offenses from coaching. THESA, however, was willing to let Whiteman coach and had no overseers to tell them he shouldn’t. In fact, the program was aware of Whiteman’s history, as players and parents had to sign contracts acknowledging Coach Whiteman’s “sin” and how he had been “redeemed” before joining the team.
After Whiteman’s criminal history was found by an online watchdog, he was forced to resign almost a month after he came to the school. THESA has scrubbed all records of Whiteman, and Carroll High School in Southlake launched an internal investigation when documents showed the school verified Whiteman as an approved, off-campus provider for Southlake ISD. John Huffman, the former Southlake mayor who oversaw the baseball program, resigned from his position on the THESA board.
The incident is not the first, as homeschool sports programs have long been accused of a variety of problems, including ineligible players, lack of academic accountability and shoddy organizations, as teams seem to pop up overnight and disappear just as quickly. Earlier this year, a Lions basketball player was punched by a player from the Home School Athletic Association (HSAA).
To be clear, homeschooled athletes are not the issue. These athletes deserve to compete like everyone else. There will be more options for homeschoolers since Texas Senate Bill 401 passed in 2025, which allows homeschoolers to participate in UIL activities by default, rather than the previous “opt-in” system, which was adopted by only 4 percent of districts.
The Lions’ varsity baseball team played six different homeschool programs over seven games this season. This is not unusual for the program, which played five games against homeschool teams in 2025, not including a match-up against THESA that was canceled due to rain.
There is no need for Lions’ teams to play against the homeschool programs. The metroplex is home to hundreds of teams that have to follow similar rules and regulations that we have to. Clearly, some of these programs cannot be trusted to properly vet coaches and players, which poses a risk to Lions’ athletes. To ensure the safety of our players, Lions’ teams need to either make sure that these programs are well run, or not schedule them at all.
