Assistant Athletic Director George Luna has been named as CISD’s athlet ic direct or New Bishop athletic Bishop Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Christina Gutierrez wasted no time in finding a replacement for Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Larry Vincent, who resigned on Wednesday.

She reassigned Assistant Athletic Director George Luna as the district’s new sports director.

“My Assistant Athletic Director George Luna will assume the Athletic Director’s responsibilities immediately, and I will not be filling the assistant athletic director position,” Gutierrez said.

Soon after resigning from BCISD, Vincent accepted the defensive coordinator position with newly opened Brownsville Veterans Memorial High School.

In his two seasons at Bishop, Vincent’s football teams went 9-10 overall and 5-5 in District 32-2A. Vincent replaced Barry Wolf two years ago.

The former AD confirmed that his main motivation to resign was because of his intention on soon marrying former Bishop High School Choir Director Veronica Lopez who also recently cut ties with the district and has moved down to the valley.

“It was personal reasons; I am getting married in a couple of weeks and this is a good opportunity that was extended to me from Brownsville and it just seemed like a good time,” Vincent said.

“Coach Luna is going to step in and take my spot; he’s been here for quite a while and he is going to do a great job.”

Reminiscing, Vincent said he fully enjoyed his time with Bishop.

“I had a great time and Bishop is a great place, full of great people and great kids,” Vincent said. “The staff and administration at BCISD were wonderful to us, the always worked hard and everyone gave me an opportunity to build my own program for the past two years.”

All in all, Vincent said he was very thankful to the community in Bishop.

“We have shown a lot of success and improvement, these last few years, in a lot of areas and I think Bishop is headed in the right direction with their new facilities and the school board has been so good to us,” Vincent said.

“Bishop gave me the opportunity to come home to my daughter and spend two quality years there and have an impact on their athletics and her athletic career as well and it was a lot of fun.”

Gutierrez said she was not distraught by Vincent’s resignation.

“No, absolutely not,” Gutierrez said. “I am happy for him and not at all upset about it in any way, shape or form. Even if he had stayed here in Bishop, it would have been perfectly fine too.”

The superintendent also explained her decision in handpicking Luna.

“George has been with the district for at least ten years and has done a very good job; I think we have a fantastic new leader and I have every bit of faith that he will continue improving things in Bishop,” Gutierrez said.

“He’s had the opportunity to work closely with Vincent these last couple of years and I feel that George has just grown tremendously as an administrator and gotten some really good experience.”

Luna, Gutierrez went on, is the right man to take the reins.

“I am a hundred and ten percent confident that he knows what to do for our athletic department to keep the ball rolling, while coming up with some of his own goals, and will have no problem implementing his ideas,” Gutierrez said. “With new leadership comes changes and I think we are going to see our athletic department grow along with the number of athletes and things in Bishop will prosper.”

BCISD’s new AD said he is ecstatic in accepting his new assignment.

“I am very happy to be the athletic director,” Luna said. “Formerly being an assistant and now being the athletic director means I will have more responsibilities and it will be more of a challenge.”

Luna’s entire coaching career has been with the good old green and gold.

“This is going to be my twelfth year and this is the only school district I have been with,” Luna said. “So I have known all of the local kids and parents and am real acquainted with the community. Another big plus is that I have known these kids since they were very little so I have learned how to work to get the best out of them.”

Luna had nothing but commending words for his predecessor.

“Coach Vincent is a great guy to work with and he did a very good job here with the kids,” Luna said. “I have learned a lot from both Vincent and the previous athletic director (Wolf) who was here for nine years and both of them have been great.

Larry Vincent is going to do a great job wherever he goes because he is an awesome football coach.”

At the same time, Bishop’s student athletes are in very capable hands.

“I want to prepare your kid, not so much to succeed in sports, but overall in life,” Luna said in a message to parents. “I want the best for our kids, to prepare them for when they graduate and to help them understand about the importance of discipline, help them hold down a job, be respectful to their boss and to succeed in other areas than just sports.”