Phillip Tanner grateful to lead Elks against the world as new head coach
Burleson ISD names former Dallas Cowboys running back and special teams assistant and former Burleson Elks offensive coordinator Phillip Tanner as Elks' third head coach in three years
Burleson High School has a new football coach – former Dallas Cowboys running back and special teams assistant and former Burleson Elks offensive coordinator Phillip Tanner.
The Burleson Independent School District named Tanner as the Burleson High School head football coach and athletic coordinator at the Burleson ISD School Board meeting April 22 at the Burleson ISD Administration Building.
Introducing himself with a speech to kick off a meeting with the community April 23 at the Burleson High School indoor facility, Tanner guaranteed the players, parents and community will be proud to be Burleson Elks with him as head coach.
“We will unite a community through a first-class football team,” he said. “Day in and day out, that’s our goal.”
A committee including Burleson ISD athletic director Kevin Ozee, high school and middle school principals, Burleson High School assistant campus coordinator, a parent and a trustee recommended Tanner as Burleson’s third head coach in three years.
At the April 23 community meeting Ozee said he’s thrilled Tanner will be coaching the Elks. He said Tanner made an impact on the community while he was the Elks’ offensive coordinator in 2020 and 2021 under former head coach John Kitna and maintained those relationships after he left Burleson to become the head coach of the Fort Worth-Southwest Raiders in 2022.
Ozee thinks Tanner’s familiarity with the program and the school district will be “huge,” he said.
“There was magic those first couple years with Coach Kitna’s staff here,” Ozee said. “[They] had a lot of success, and [Tanner] was a huge factor in it.”
At the April 23 meeting, Tanner said he’s excited to be back in Burleson and reiterated that he kept in touch with the kids when he was coaching Fort Worth-Southwest.
“It was a no-brainer to come back to such a group that I feel support from,” Tanner said.
Tanner led Fort Worth-Southwest to two 4-6 seasons in 2022 and 2023 after his tenure as the Elks’ offensive coordinator for the prior two years.
Something Tanner can apply from his time as Fort Worth-Southwest’s head coach is making the team’s culture the top priority, he said at the April 23 community meeting.
“It’s not about the evaluation of players, it’s not about scheme, none of that,” Tanner said. “It’s about culture. It’s about getting in there and gaining the trust of the players.”
The Elks’ culture will be built in the weightroom, one of two rooms Tanner cares about with the other being the classroom, he said. He said he’s not concerned with people donating money to the program for upgrading equipment and would rather people “donate nutrition.” “Nutrition and food is all we need,” he said.
Tanner said all the team needs is for the staff, parents and community to believe in them.
“Not many people believe in us, but that’s cool,” he said. “As long as we got the guys and the women in this building, that’s all we need.”
Tanner’s “GRITty” mindset
Not needing anyone outside the community to believe in them is part of the “gritty” “us against the world” mindset Tanner wants the Elks to have.
“It’s about us,” Tanner said. “And if you’re not a part of that ‘us,’ we’re going against you. It’s that simple. We’ll go play anybody anywhere anytime.”
“That “G.R.I.T.” stands for Grateful, Respectful, Impactful and Trustful,” he said.
“We’re grateful for every opportunity to get to go out between the hashes and play football. We’re grateful for every opportunity to get to walk in that weight room and get better. We’re grateful for every opportunity to get to sit in that classroom knowing that’s what matters in order for us to go between the hashes.”
Attitude of Gratitude
Something Tanner is personally grateful for is the opportunity to coach the Elks, he said.
“Everyday I wake up in the morning my feet hit the ground, it’s with gratitude to walk into this facility, to come into this community and pour into these young men and transform these young men from the inside out,” Tanner said.
He’s also grateful for the love he’s received from the community, he said. He added that he couldn’t sleep after Burleson ISD announced his hiring April 22 because he made sure to thank everyone who congratulated him.
Burleson’s “contagious” sense of family-oriented community is the biggest thing to grab Tanner’s attention while on the Elks’ coaching staff in 2020 and 2021, Tanner said.
Tanner’s success as a head coach, at least in his eyes, will be determined by how his players get involved in the community, he said.
“I trick [the players] with 120 yards [by] 53 and 1/3. That’s how I trick them into my mentorship program,” Tanner said. “I just want to grow your young men to be community leaders. Everything we do in the weight room, film room, on the grass, it’s only to grow strong community leaders.”
“At some point, he’ll pull that helmet off for the last time. And to define the success of my program is [to ask] “who is he when he pulls that helmet off for the last time?”
Former Dallas head coach Jason Garrett can’t imagine a better person than Tanner, who he said has a rare ability to have a positive impact on people, to coach Burleson, he said in a Burleson ISD statement.
“[Tanner] will build a team the right way,” Garrett said in the statement. “It will be a team that everyone in the Burleson community will be proud to support! He will develop his players both on and off the field and help turn them into young men who will be ready to take on the challenges that lie ahead once they graduate! They will be better people because of the experience of playing for Coach Phillip Tanner! It will be an experience they will never forget and one for which they’ll be forever grateful!”
Tanner said he and his staff will “empty the bucket” pouring into the kids everyday, and he told the kids to hold him and the staff accountable to that.
“If you ever leave this facility saying ‘Coach didn’t pour into me’ or ‘I didn’t get enough,’ come talk to us, come talk to us and we’ll raise it another notch,” Tanner said to those at the community meeting.
Elks’ third coach in three years
Tanner’s coaching career – which he began as a Dallas Cowboys special-teams assistant in 2019 after playing his first three of four NFL seasons with Dallas from 2011 to 2013 – brings him to Burleson as the Elks’ third head coach in three years after former head coach Chad Worrell accepted a job to coach his alma mater, Pilot Point High School. Worrell led Burleson to a 2-8 record in 2023 in his lone season as head coach.
Ozee hopes to have Tanner coaching long-term and joked with him that this is a five-year deal, Ozee said. He added that Tanner told him he’d turn down an NFL job to continue coaching at Burleson. “That’s what we want,” Ozee said. “We want the people who want to be here.”
Ozee also said Burleson ISD wants their coaches to be recruited because it means they’re doing a good job.
Hiring Tanner, Burleson goes from a highly-experienced head coach and athletic coordinator in Worrell to Tanner who has two years of head-coaching experience, but Ozee doesn’t see that as negative at all. He said he likes that Tanner is young because he thinks it will make him adaptable.
“That’s where I think coaches sometimes find themselves – they get in trouble because they don’t adapt,” Ozee said. “Young guys like [Tanner] are always adapting.”
One thing Worrell did as the Elks’ head coach in 2023 was establish a run-heavy offense – led by sophomore running back Nate Jackson who rushed for 985 yards (third in district) and scored seven touchdowns. This was a change from Kitna’s pass-heavy offense (with his son Jalen Kitna at quarterback).
Ozee sees Tanner being able to build on Coach Worrell’s run-heavy offense while also incorporating a spread-style offense and “throwing the ball a little bit more,” Ozee said.
Tanner said he still has to evaluate the players to determine what the offense will look like but thinks it could feature a mix of run-heavy and pass-heavy schemes.
Gaining the players’ trust and the community’s support
Ultimately, Tanner is focused on gaining the players’ trust and isn’t making predictions on what the team’s record will be with him as head coach because, as he said, that isn’t how he’ll define his success.
In order for Tanner to build the quality football program that he believes can be filled with future community leaders built in the weightroom on a “G.R.I.Tty” “us against the world” mindset, he needs the community’s support.
“I just need your guys’ support backing me and just cheering loud,” Tanner said specifically to the parents at the community meeting. “That’s it – just cheer loud. Even if you don’t know what you’re cheering for, just say ‘Go Elks.’ If you don’t have anything to say on Friday nights, say ‘Go Elks.”
Tanner ended his speech at the community meeting by having the group of players, parents, coaches, Burleson ISD staff and media (me) break with “Us against the world” on three.
Welcome back coach Tanner!