Astronaut head track coach Tom Bundy will be ending his teaching and coaching at the end of the school year after spending four decades with the War Eagles.
The Class 2A state meet was the final meet of Bundy’s career as head coach. He attended the meet in support of distance runner Noah McCollam, who placed seventh in the 3,200 at the meet.
An Astronaut High School graduate himself, Bundy coached track and field, football and wrestling for the War Eagles during his time with the school, and coaching was something he knew he wanted to do early in his adult life.
“Actually, when I graduated high school, I was going to major in physical education and I wanted to be a coach anyways, so I had an opportunity to help out with the ninth-grade football program,” Bundy said of how his coaching career began.
That opportunity came in 1980, and it began a storied career in northern Brevard County.
Bundy officially became a Brevard County employee and started coaching track and field and football at the school in 1985. During his time with the War Eagles, he helped coach his teams to several successful seasons, including winning 16 Cape Coast Conference championships and winning a state title in track and field.
The War Eagles boys team won the Class 2A state championship under Bundy in 2000. That season, Astronaut won the title with a total of 96 points, strongly outpacing the second-place team that year, Glades Central, who finished with 52 points.
“Obviously winning that state championship was a big deal because it was a goal. We had a lot of years where we had some great athletes, but we had kind of the right recipe for that,” Bundy said. “But that was a great thing especially about the number of points that we scored at that kind of thing.”
While that team championship title was a big achievement for Bundy during his coaching career, he mentioned watching athletes improve and win individually as something that also made him proud as coach and recalled one year where his boy 4×100 squad continued to make school history in the event.
“We had a pretty good boys relay team, and they started breaking the school record about the time they got to district, then they broke the school record in the 4×100 down at the region,” Bundy said. “Then they ran the prelims (at state) on Friday, broke their own record again and that Saturday they finished fourth when they were probably ranked eighth going into it and they set a new record again, so like three times in a row.”
Throughout Bundy’s time at Astronaut, he built lifelong relationship with players and coaches. Brett Gadapee was coached by Bundy in football during his time as a student at the school and has recently spent years as assistant track coach with Bundy.
Gadapee highlighted Bundy’s knowledge as one of the things that made him a great coach to play for.
“He was one of my favorites that I played for and he knows the game exceptionally well so he can teach. When we were kids, we didn’t really know what we were doing,” Gadapee said. “And he could teach it but put it in words that we could understand so he could take those higher-level concepts and make it easier to get so that then we could go do what we were supposed to do correctly and to the best of our ability.”
Gadapee not only enjoyed playing for Bundy, but he also greatly appreciated his time as a coach on Bundy’s staff.
“He can also relate to everything everybody’s going through so his knowledge is outstanding,” Gadapee said. “But it’s always an equitable relationship where I can have input, other coaches can have input, players and athletes can have input. He’s a great coach that he can figure out the best way to go forward while getting everybody’s input.”
Bundy will also retire from teaching at the end of the school year and while he may not officially work with the school anymore, he informed his track staff that he is more than happy to help out in the future.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Astronaut head track coach Tom Bundy retiring after four decades with the school
Reporting by Chasite Banks, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
