Helping Hand: Haughton High benefits from generosity of alum Dak Prescott, QB of Dallas Cowboys

by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor

Haughton football coach Matthew Sewell hurriedly worked around the effects of the January snowstorm to take his family on a scheduled trip to Disney World.

Because of unexpected accumulations of snow, coupled with freezing-cold temperatures, departure times for Sewell’s family were steadily bumped back over three days and into the following week. He decided to take time for some last-minute shopping when he received a call from his athletic director David Turner that melted his heart.

Turner had taken the lead on a proposal to former Haughton quarterback Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys, identifying several need items for the school’s football program. Sewell, a freshman at the school where Prescott was a senior, had long looked up to Prescott who went on to enjoy a standout college career at Mississippi State and is currently with the Cowboys.

Turner could hardly contain his exuberance over the phone with Sewell. After contacting Prescott last August, Turner was notified that Prescott was willing to help and give back to his hometown school in Bossier Parish.

“He said Dak’s officially going to do this,” Sewell said of his conversation with Turner. “I told him that was the news I needed after the last couple of days.”

What Prescott confirmed was a $1,120.690 million gift to his alma mater, earmarked for the football program to upgrade their weight room along with the purchase of a Daktronics Jumbotron with replay and graphics capability.

Haughton High’s stadium will also be known as Prescott Field.

The Bossier Parish School Board approved the measure during its monthly meeting last Thursday.

“David Turner did most of the legwork on getting this done,” Sewell said. “We always knew he was going to do something for us when he got that next contract. We just weren’t sure what was going to be and when. We started communicating with him last fall, seeing what he wanted to do, and the last couple of months it’s come together.”

Prescott, who completed his ninth season with Dallas, is a former fourth-round draft choice in the 2016 draft. The former NFL Rookie of the Year and Walter Payton Man of the Year was limited to eight games in 2024 because of injuries.

The holder of the club’s single-season and career passing records Prescott was rewarded last September with a four-year, $240 million extension for an annual salary of $60 million. He also received an $80 million signing bonus. 

“I have an older brother that played at Haughton with Dak’s brothers,” Sewell said. “All of our coaches here have either coached him or played with him. He has a good relationship with Haughton and our kids look up to him so much. When he was at Mississippi State, and in his early days with the Cowboys, he had camps here. 

“He’s done small things here and there like giving money to (Haughton’s) basketball (program),” Sewell said. “He has donated backpacks and school supplies. He doesn’t live here, but he grew up here. He’s been very good to our community. There’s a reason our community loves him so much. It’s not just because he’s the quarterback of the Cowboys.”

Haughton High principal David Haynie is one such member of the Haughton community who’s established a long-lasting relationship with Prescott. Haynie was on the Buccaneers’ coaching staff during the formative career of Prescott, who’s remained in contact with his former head coach Jason Brotherton, David Turner, his middle school, and Sewell, a former teammate. 

“All of those guys had a vision to make some improvements, so we’re excited to see all of those things come to fruition,” Haynie said. “I had the pleasure of watching him grow up and we’re excited he remembers us and still feels a strong connection. He and his family still do a lot for our community that a lot of people don’t know about, and he doesn’t want credit for it.”

Sewell was the offensive coordinator at Parkway for three years before returning to his alma mater in 2023 to serve in the same capacity. He was hired as the school’s new head coach in May of 2024 and the Buccaneers were 3-7 in his first season.

There were gradual improvements to Haughton’s facilities before Sewell’s arrival and subsequently since he’s been with the Bucs.

The Buccaneers received a new fieldhouse in 2009, a new all-weather track in 2011, a new entrance to the field with a wrought iron fence, and home and away ticket booths in ’17. A new pavilion for tailgating was introduced in ’19 followed by a new practice field in ’21, home and away bleacher improvements, and last year the arrival of a new storage building, turf game field, and goal posts.

“The cool thing about Haughton is that it’s one of the true community schools that’s still left out there,” said Sewell, who also noted a $700,000 project to upgrade the team’s practice field took place several years ago. “We don’t have a lot of people that transfer in here, we don’t have a lot of people that transfer out of here. Our people here are Haughton people. A lot of our kids know him (Prescott) and a lot of them don’t. When they found that out, it was one of the coolest things in my coaching career to watch how they reacted. They were excited.

“He’s Tom Brady to a lot of them,” Sewell said. “The quarterback of the Cowboys was being generous enough to give us the means to do that and to make their experience better. He’s not getting anything out of it. He’s doing it because of his generosity to make the kids’ experience better at Haughton than it is right now.”

The school’s weight room, which is also used by the powerlifting and baseball teams, will be totally overhauled in its existing space with brand-new equipment and modern flooring.

“We use the weight room every day,” Sewell said. “They were just as excited about that as they were about the scoreboard. We’re getting newer racks, a newer floor, extra racks – more racks than we used to have because they’re more space efficient. All plates will be rubber coated. It’s going to be so nice and it’s going to last forever because what we’re getting is going to be top-notch.

“We were planning upgrades to our weight room at some point,” Sewell said. “I had decided if this didn’t work, we were going to be paying for it ourselves. It may have taken us some time. It would have taken us a few years to pay for it.”

The arrival of the scoreboard, which will rival the biggest in the state, will be extremely timely considering Haughton played a game within the past two years without a functioning scoreboard or clock. 

“It’s going benefit football and soccer, the band, and have an educational component to it,” Haynie said of the scoreboard which will also feature the band during its halftime performances. “The students will be learning a curriculum in sports media, it’s going to be a huge contributor to the curriculum department. That’s exciting.”

It will benefit more than just the players and fans, but students at Haughton who can earn class credit and possibly open the door to a new path from their experience of operating the scoreboard and video boards which will have eight to nine cameras providing live-time angles from the action on the field.

“It was definitely time to get a new one and to get one that nice it’s really cool and for it to be from one of our people,” Sewell said. “Who doesn’t want to come play on a brand-new field with a state-of-the-art scoreboard and get to work in a state-of-the-art weight room every day? It’s going to give us the nicest high school football facility in Northwest Louisiana. Our kids are going to be excited. 

“It’s not just for our football program,” Sewell said. “We play soccer games here and our band will perform on the screen. It’s giving opportunities to other students at our school who aren’t athletes. They’ll learn how to correctly use that type of equipment, and it may spark an interest in them choosing a career based on the opportunities they get through the classes they’ll be able to take. It’s really cool and affects a lot more people than just our team.”