Lennard High flag football team awards coach with scholarship to finish degree

RUSKIN, Fla. - Lennard High School flag football coach Travis Combs bleeds the purple and gold of the Longhorns.

"He just pours his heart and soul into these girls and into this program," said Carrie Elwell, whose daughter plays quarterback for the Longhorns. "They mean the world to him, and he means the world to them."

Pouring his heart into his team, Combs also pours his heart into his hometown of Ruskin, because Ruskin has always been there for Combs. 

"I think just having people return that favor to me, that believe in me and want me to be better, especially coming from people that I care about, it just means a lot," Combs said.

Twenty years ago, Combs needed to lean on his hometown more than ever before. Two weeks after graduating from high school, Combs' older brother, PJ, was killed in a car crash. Five years later, Combs also lost his father, Phil.

"Those two are the reason I love this town and this community so much," Combs said.

Through his grief growing up, the Longhorns' head coach always had his community and his high school coaches behind him.

"I want to make young people better because my coaches helped me through that time," Combs said. "I'm paying it forward and I'd like to do it here because these are my people."

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And paying it forward is just what Combs has done while transforming the Longhorns flag football team from a struggling program into a team that came within a single point of winning a state title this season.

"We made it just about as far as you can make it in a season. It was just beyond special," said senior quarterback Abby Elwell.

Taking over the program in 2019, that same year Combs decided to simultaneously begin working toward earning his college degree across the street from Lennard at Hillsborough Community College.

"It was literally practice until 6:30 p.m., eat in the common area, and then go right to class," Combs recalls.

Slowly but surely, Combs has continued to work toward a degree in education. One of the courses he still needs to take, however, is a Spanish class at HCC.

Meanwhile, as the Longhorns progressed through the 2024 season, they drew the attention of Melanie Davis, the South Shore Chamber of Commerce Executive Director.

Davis asked some of the team parents what could be done as a show of thanks to Combs for reviving the Lennard flag football team.

"We have scholarships that we give out to HCC every year, so I reached out to the people that donated to ask what they thought about giving one to this coach and they absolutely loved it," Davis explained.

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At the team's postseason banquet, the seniors that, themselves, were going off to college surprised their head coach with the news that he, too, was heading back to class along with them.

"It was pretty priceless," remembers Deborah Bird, a team parent. "It was a Spanish scholarship, so we had a girl read it in Spanish. It was perfect, he had no idea what was going on."

Though Combs' Spanish skills were too rusty to understand what he was being given, it soon became clear to him.

"It was just a really special moment," Combs said.

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With a $1,000 scholarship to HCC, Combs can take another step toward completing his degree in the hopes of one day becoming a full-time teacher or college coach.

Above all, he is showing his team and his community that it is never too late to improve yourself and give back.

"If I'm telling them that they need to go to school and get a degree, I don't want to have to answer that question, 'Well, why didn't you?'" said Combs.

Now, Combs heads back into the classroom thanks to a team and a community that continues to love Combs as much as he loves it.

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