SportsDayHS writer and editor
Grand Prairie football coach and athletic coordinator Tony Tademy passed away suddenly, GP ISD said Monday.
The school district did not have any additional information at this time.
Tademy had been Grand Prairie’s coach since 2018 and was coming off a 1-9 season. He led Grand Prairie to the playoffs in 2021, when the team finished 7-5.
“The only thing we know for sure is that he did pass away suddenly over the weekend,” said Sam Buchmeyer, public information officer for Grand Prairie ISD. “Beyond that, we have few details. We have been in contact with his family, and at this time they didn’t have much information.”
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Tademy’s only other head coaching experience came at Katy Tompkins, where he started the football program and worked from 2014 to 2016. He was an assistant on the Texas City team that won the Class 4A Division I state championship in 1997, and he also spent time as an assistant at McKinney and Duncanville.
Tademy was the assistant head coach at Henderson State before taking the job at Grand Prairie. He joined the TCU staff in 2005 and was the linebackers coach for seven years under Gary Patterson, including for the 2010 team that went 13-0 and won the Rose Bowl. TCU led the nation in total defense three times in a four-year span while Tademy was there, and he coached five linebackers who played in the NFL.
Buchmeyer said that counseling will be available to students.
“Today we were able to talk to the staff and let them know,” Buchmeyer said. “We will probably have something going out to parents tomorrow, and they are going to take the opportunity to speak to players and students tomorrow.”
South Grand Prairie coach Laban DeLay shared his thoughts on a coach he had gotten to know well.
“He was first and foremost a great man. We had become really good friends over the last four years whenever I took the job at South,” DeLay said. “We were competitors before that, and acquaintances, but got to know him in a different light whenever we were in the same district. A lot of respect for him as a football coach obviously, but more so as a man and as an individual. My heart goes out to the family and everybody in the Grand Prairie community. It’s a tough day.”
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I have worked at The Dallas Morning News since 2000. I cover high school sports as a reporter and help coordinate our coverage. I graduated from TCU, where I ran track and cross country. I previously worked at the Weatherford Democrat, Marshall News Messenger, Amarillo Globe-News and Arlington Morning News.
