Todd Whitten Says He Got Sober After Tarleton State Hired Him a Third Time in 2015
Athletic director Lonn Reisman brought Whitten back knowing about his alcohol dependency. Whitten checked into rehab, then drove 100 miles round-trip for 120 straight days of AA meetings.
AUG 28, 2026
Todd Whitten has been Tarleton State's head football coach three separate times, and the third hire was the one that came with full disclosure.
Lonn Reisman, the athletic director who first hired Whitten in 1996, hired him again in the fall of 2015 knowing Whitten was dependent on alcohol. Whitten says he has been sober since, and that the job offer was what finally forced the issue.
The addiction traced back to his playing days at Stephen F. Austin and ran roughly a decade at its worst, when Whitten was drinking almost a case of beer a day. That stretch covered the most visible part of his career. He was fired at Sam Houston in 2009 after five seasons, finishing 25-28 with losing records in three of them. He landed at Lamar as offensive coordinator, then a Texas high school head job, then a receivers coach role at UTEP.
"It's hard to be good at anything when you're an alcoholic, other than the drinkin'," Whitten said.
He also acknowledges nobody was going to talk him out of it before he was ready. "At that point, I wasn't going to hear anybody really," he said.
The admission came at home first. Whitten credits his wife, Dana, and does not soften what he put her through. "Once I admitted it, she was ready. I can't say enough how thankful I am for her. She had every reason to pack up and leave. … I'm ashamed of myself for letting myself get that way." On saying it out loud, he said: "The words finally came out of my mouth. It was the best feeling."
What followed was not a one-week fix. Whitten checked into a rehab center, and after leaving it he drove from Stephenville to Weatherford and back, about 100 miles a day, to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He did that 120 days in a row, 120 meetings in 120 days. He and Dana also began attending Timber Ridge Church as part of his recovery.
Five years into sobriety, Whitten gave his five-year AA chip to Reisman.
That detail is the whole story of the hire in one gesture. Reisman had the longest possible history with Whitten as a coach: he put him in the job in 1996, brought him back four years later, and watched Whitten win Tarleton's first Lone Star Conference championship and reach the Division II playoffs twice between 2000 and 2004. He also knew what Whitten was carrying by 2015 and hired him anyway. Tarleton went on to have some of the most successful seasons in program history.