Grapevine Faith’s Austin Cosby looks for a receiver against All Saints during their game at All Saints Episcopal on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.
John Rowland
(Special to the Star-Telegram)
TCU is set to start its football season Saturday against North Carolina in Dublin, Ireland.
But before the college season kicks off, Grapevine Faith will participate in The Global Ireland Football Tournament. The Lions are facing North Carolina’s Ambassador Christian at 9 a.m. Central time Friday at Energia Park in Donnybrook.
The Star-Telegram caught up with Grapevine Faith athletic director and TCU football sideline reporter Elvis Gallegos to discuss the Lions’ trip to Ireland.
The following interview is edited for clarity and length.
How did the trip come together? Obviously, it’s an experience that took a lot of planning.
Yeah, it sure did. We started back in September. Being a part of [TCU’s] game, and meeting a lot of people as TCU’s game was coming together. I met Patrick [Steenberge], who runs Global Football. And they’ve been doing a high school game to help kick off the College Football Classic in Dublin. Immediately, I said, ‘Man, we’d be interested in something like that.’
We probably made the decision in late October to do it. The biggest piece was the buy-in from our school. It really lined up as we had multiple conversations with leadership and families. And then starting to really plan it — really starting to think through an opponent, with us being a small private school. And Patrick connected us pretty quickly to a school in North Carolina — also a private school.
A little different model than us. So, when that came about, I got together with their athletic director, and we thought this would be a win-win if we could do two private schools, one from North Carolina and one from Texas.
How excited are you for the kids to have this opportunity? It’s very rare to play a team from out of state and even more rare to play a team out of the country.
Super excited, and we’ve been here a few days. We got here Tuesday morning, and we’ve had a great time. The weather right now is sunny and in the mid-60s. It’s been really fun. One of the things that I love about our school is we’re really intentional about engaging with the world.
We talk a lot about engaging, and we do a lot of leadership trips and a lot of mission trips. And so, for our athletic department to be able to do the same engagement with the world and bring our kids together is exciting.
So, I got to talk to Ambassador Christian and Global Football and said, ‘Hey, what are your thoughts on volleyball participating?’ Well, everybody was all in on that. They’ve done a really good job of putting that together. And then through that, we talked about cheer, dance team and a little bit of our drum line.
So, all of a sudden, it became this huge trip. We’ve probably got about 75 or so students here. So, to have a shared experience, to engage with the world, to do something that’s super memorable — it’s been talked about for a long time. One of the core things that we talk about is giving our student-athletes just an incredible experience while they’re under our leadership.
What does the football team’s preparation look like leading up to the game? Have you guys been able to practice at all?
Yeah, we have. We had a little bit of hiccups because some luggage didn’t get here in time and some equipment didn’t get here. So, Tuesday was day one. We got here. [Global Football] had us doing activities and really treating this like a bowl game.
We’ve got this incredible itinerary. We’re staying at Maynooth University in the dorms, and we’ll have evening practice [Wednesday]. We were actually trying to practice in the mornings, but because of the late luggage, we had to do evening. We’ve had to adapt to the weather a little bit. Tuesday was super rainy during practice, but they have a nice turf field. The volleyball team was able to practice, too.
Do you want TCU fans to come check out your game before the Frogs take the field on Saturday?
It would be awesome. I played there, and I’ve worked [at TCU]. I’ve been working there for a long time. So I got a chance to speak at Joe T. Garcia’s. We had a really cool event with [TCU announcer] Brian Estridge. TCU athletic director Mike Buddie was there. In front of a large crowd, he talked about our team, and a lot of people really cheered us on, and Brian encouraged them to come to the game.
I have gotten a lot of texts from friends and people who are in town coming by. I think some of our team doctors from TCU and some of our staff are going to try to make it as well. I’d love that because I’m a TCU guy, and that kind of support would be pretty awesome.
Is Grapevine Faith going to catch the TCU game the next day?
Absolutely. That’s the big part of the trip. We’ll have about 15 to 20 of our students and coaches on the field to be honored. Our whole team will be traveling together to the TCU game, sitting in the lower level in the south end zone. So we have what they call an awards ceremony tomorrow before the game, and it’s really close to the stadium. Then the team will just walk over as a group.
Is there anything else about this experience that we haven’t talked about that you think is interesting or that people should know?
When you take something this massive on, you got to have a large support group behind you: our school, our president, our principals. We’ve had to adjust our classes, which was huge for everybody because there was a concern of missing a week of school. So having principals behind you and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to restructure our week. We’re going to take some days off. We’re going to backfill it in different ways.’
It really took the school’s support to make this happen. It’s not just the football thing. It’s not just an athletics thing. It really took everybody to make something like this happen.
To me, if you can make the trip, take a chance. I think you’re going to give your kids an unbelievable experience that they’re going to talk about forever. In the couple of days that we’ve been here, I feel like as a team, we’re already bonding and really coming together. That’s what you really want, right? That’s the beauty of athletics. It draws relationships even tighter. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
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Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Charles Baggarly is a high school sports editor and reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. He graduated from TCU in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and served as TCU 360’s sports editor. Connect with Charles on Twitter or via email.