MacArthur Grad Richard Hightower is Proof That Hard Work Pays Off in the Long Run

Richard Hightower never used his lack of size or speed as an excuse for not getting things done on the football field.

MacArthur High School grad Richard Hightower is the special teams coordinator for the NFL champion San Francisco 49ers, who will face Kansas City in Super Bowl LIV on Feb. 2.

Hightower, a 1998 graduate of MacArthur High School, was a tenacious and big-play safety for the Generals although he was only 5-8 and did not possess blazing speed. He then walked on at the University of Texas where he starred as a special teams player thanks to a relentless work ethic he had instilled in him by his father, Richard, Sr.

Today, Hightower is the special teams coordinator for the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers and on Sunday, Feb. 2, he will lead his unit in Super Bowl LIV against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Hightower’s story is an inspiring one. He never made excuses and excelled in the classroom and on the field in high school and college. He has continued to excel in his professional life, as the 49ers are one of the best special team units in the league under his leadership. When he was only six-years-old, his father shared a saying with him that he lives by to this day: “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” His father and mother Carolyn stressed the importance of education and he and his sister Tracee took their advice to heart.

Hightower credits his time in Aldine, especially at MacArthur, with helping to forge him into the successful coach he is today.

“I graduated from MacArthur in 1998, one of the best experiences of my life and I am eternally grateful for the educators, coaches and friends I was blessed enough to meet along the way,” Hightower said. “I have always been and will always be honored to be a MacArthur General.”

Hightower, who has coached in the NFL for 13 years, is thankful for the coaches he had in high school who taught him the game he has loved to play and coach since he was a young boy.

“All of my coaches definitely had an impact on me and I appreciate all of them because they invested so much time in all of us,” he said. “But my position coaches had the biggest impact on me and coach Kelly Silha and coach Ron Gabriel were mine and the men I spent the most time with.

“I can’t say enough great things about both of them. Both have great football minds and are phenomenal coaches and the coolest things is they are even better people. I learned a lot from them and have always tried to emulate them when dealing with our players.”

Silha, currently the cross country coach at MacArthur, said it was an honor to coach a player with the determination and will to succeed that Hightower possessed.

“I coached Richard through middle school (Hambrick) and high school,” Silha said. “Richard was an outstanding and gifted student and brought that intelligence to the football field. He played safety for us and he made my job easy because he was like having another coach on the field and got us in all of the right coverage’s. He, like his family, was an over achiever. (Hightower’s sister Tracee was MacArthur’s salutatorian and a partner at Price Waterhouse Cooper). He may have been undersized, but he has a heart the size of Texas.”

After walking on at Texas, Hightower begged head coach Mack Brown and his coaching staff to give him a shot on special teams because he wanted to contribute for the Longhorns any way he could.

In his first game on the kickoff team as a redshirt freshman in 1999 against Texas Tech, Hightower recorded three tackles and recovered a fumble in UT’s 58-7 pasting of the Red Raiders.

His performance against Tech earned him a job on all of Texas’ special team units for the rest of his UT career.

Prior to the start of his senior season in 2002, Brown surprised Hightower, and teammate Kyle Shanahan, with a scholarship. Hightower and Shanahan would be reunited a few years later when the latter began making a name for himself as one of the NFL’s brightest young offensive minds. Today, Shanahan is the head coach of the 49ers.

Hightower graduated with a BA in business and he said he would be forever grateful to Brown for awarding him a scholarship.

“The scholarship meant the world to me,” Hightower said. “Coach Brown did not have to do it. He just gets it. He always acknowledged players in special ways. Coach Brown is a special person, one of the rarest in college football. I was lucky to have Coach Brown as a head coach. He taught us football, but more importantly, he wanted you to be a productive person in society and placed importance on life after football.”

With college behind him, Hightower entered the private sector, but his love of the game would not go away. He earned a marketing internship with the Texans and in 2006 he received the break he had always wanted, a chance to coach in the NFL.

When Gary Kubiak was named the Texans head coach in 2006, he brought with him Shanahan to coach wide receivers and his buddy at UT provided Hightower with the opportunity to serve as an intern to Kubiak.

He remained an intern until 2008 when he was named a special teams assistant coach. He left for the University of Minnesota for a year before he was reunited with Shanahan and his father Mike, when the latter was named head coach of the Washington Redskins in 2010.

Hightower was an assistant secondary coach with Washington from 2010-13 then moved on to Cleveland in 2014 and then followed the younger Shanahan to Atlanta the following year when Shanahan was named the Falcons offensive coordinator.

In 2015, Hightower moved to the 49ers as a special teams assistant then served in that same role with the Chicago Bears in 2016.

When Shanahan, his good friend and college teammate was named the 49ers head coach after the 2016 season, he called his buddy and offered him the special teams coordinator’s job, which Hightower gladly accepted.

Hightower’s unit is one of the best in the league. From 2017-18, SF’s kicking unit ranked first in the NFL and its punt coverage team ranked second, limiting foes to a paltry 5.7 yards per punt return.

Hightower’s unit could play a vital role in Sunday’s big game against the Chiefs, who have dynamic and speedy return men in Tyreek Hill and Mercole Hardman. Hightower’s unit will need to keep Hill or Hardman from busting a big kickoff or punt return and many think his players will be up to the task.

Hightower credits Aldine ISD with providing the groundwork for him becoming a success in his professional life.

“The education I received is a blessing and the experiences and exposure to all those different things you encounter help jumpstart you,” he said. “They (AISD administrators, teachers and coaches) helped shape me and mold me into the person I eventually became. A dear friend that I met and went to middle school with, Patrick James, is now at MacArthur teaching and coaching, doing the same things for others that Coach Gabe and Coach Silha did for us.

“Patrick and I share a special bond, he was the best man in my wedding and I was the best man in his. We would always push each other to try our best at everything we did. I don’t know where I’d be without that dude. The relationships you develop with likeminded people are the things I value the most from my time in Aldine.”

James said he and Hightower have been best friends since they me at Hambrick in the sixth grade. James, who is the head girls’ track coach and coaches wide receivers on the football team, said he was happy for all the success his best friend is enjoying. And James added he’s not a bit surprised by how well Hightower’s professional career has panned out.

“I couldn’t be more excited (for his success) and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” James said.

When asked what made Hightower such a good football player, James said that was an easy question to answer.

“First of all, his work ethic. He refused to be outworked and he also held his teammates accountable and made sure we worked,” James said. “Secondly, his intelligence. He was such a smart student and player. On and off the field, he believed in studying his books, his craft and his opponent. Lastly, he has a tremendous amount of confidence. He never used his lack of size and speed as an excuse or as a crutch. He believed in his abilities and simply trusted the work that he put in. Richard is just a special guy.”

Off the field, Hightower and his wife Lanet, his high school sweetheart, are busy raising three children, Jaxon (8), Kaden (7) and Reagan (5).

Other special team coordinators such as John Harbaugh, have gone on to become successful head coaches in the NFL. Would the MacArthur grad like to have the chance to run his own team someday?

“If that is in the Lord’s plan for me then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he said. “But right now I am focused on one thing and that’s helping my team win this Sunday. All I care about is helping the men in our locker room achieve our goal.”

If the day does arrive when Hightower receives the opportunity to run his own team, do not be surprised if he’s successful, because like his father taught him, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win!”

And Richard Hightower is definitely a winner.