To be the first person to achieve something in a specific field, it's a great accomplishment.
It also solidifies your position within your desired field.
Liberty-Eylau head football coach Dewaski Davis' 49-14 win over Jefferson not only snapped a losing streak that spanned two seasons but it also made school history.
Davis became the first minority in school history to win a game as the head coach or athletic director.
"It's big to me," Davis said. "People stereotype a lot of people. It's big for the community. It's big for Liberty-Eylau and it's big for Texarkana. There's a lot of other people who deserve credit outside of me.
"I feel like it was a big pressure deal to get the win, so we could move forward. Personally, I think it's to prove to people you can do the job."
For historical context, high school football has been played in Texarkana for more than a century.
Davis has held the same title at other schools outside of Texarkana and been successful in over three decades during his coaching career.
In my opinion, the win for Davis was a validation point. It was a point that minority coaches, if given the opportunity, can coach just as well as anyone else.
"It put in full perspective that I've won games on the 1A level, 2A level, coached on the 3A level, but I was never the head coach," Davis said. "Then I look up and won on the 4A level. It's good to know it could be done. It was fun and it took a lot of pressure off everyone. Ir was real different. "
Davis, Ricklan Holmes at Tyler, Antwain Jimmerson in Jefferson and Daingerfield's Davin Nelson are the only minority head coaches in Northeast Texas.
In Southwest Arkansas, Adrian Ivory at Foreman is the lone minority head coach.
"I've always been one to try to achieve my goals," Davis said. "This has always been one of my ultimate goals. When I first started coaching, all I wanted to do was coach. Then I became a coordinator. Once I became a coordinator, I wanted to became a head coach. It took a little while for me to get there. I finally got it and I made the best of it.
"Liberty-Eylau has always been one of the best schools to coach at in East Texas, in my opinion. I told my dad way back when, if I would ever get a chance to coach at L-E, not only would I take it, I would leave right then. So for that to come full-circle to this point and then to get the win against Jefferson, it was surreal."
Davis has gone a step further in his role at L-E by hiring and retaining other minority, so maybe one day they will be given the same opportunity he has to lead an athletic program.
"I guess that's a vow I made when I first started coaching was to always help the young guys," Davis said. "I always want to help them grow and coach. We've had many talks over the course of the year and I want to teach them all that I have learned. Hopefully, we can eliminate some hurdles that I had to come across in their journey.
"I just want to pass the torch. I want to prepare my coaches for their day. We want to take care of business now, but also make sure in the future, they can be who they want to be. I know they see with hard work and determination, anything is possible. It's not easy and there's always challenges with this profession. You have to have the mindset to overcome any obstacle. If you set your mind to outworking your opposition, you'll be successful."