Former Texas player Richard Hightower rising up the NFL coaching ranks at Shrine Bowl

FRISCO — While Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian helped headline the week with his induction into the East-West Shrine Bowl Hall of Fame on Wednesday, another coach with UT ties might have been the game’s biggest beneficiary.

Richard Hightower, a 2003 UT graduate and the special teams coordinator for the Chicago Bears, served as the East’s head coach. A veteran on the sideline with 17 years of NFL coaching experience, Hightower earned the opportunity to be a head coach at Thursday night's Shrine Bowl through a program initiated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL executive Troy Vincent to help develop promising young coaches.

More: Texas football product Ryan Watts hopes Shrine Bowl improves his NFL draft stock

His team lost the game 26-11, but Hightower knows that spending the week serving as a head coach could be a big win when it comes to his career.

And when it comes to preparing the Bears for the upcoming NFL draft.

“Overall, it was a great experience, and I’m grateful to Troy Vincent and Roger Goodell helping assistant coaches and putting them in a position where they can coach their aspirations,” Hightower said. “I mean, this is pretty cool.

“And it definitely helped with our (the Bears’) pre-draft process getting to know all of these guys. They competed hard in practice, they showed some good tape, and they got some tips to help them going forward.”

More: Which former Texas football players will play in the Shrine Bowl and Senior Bowl?

So could Hightower’s Texas ties help the Bears again draft a Longhorn after selecting running back Roschon Johnson a year ago?

“I'll tell you after the draft,” Hightower said with a laugh. “But we'll try and get one of them. We did last year, and that worked out. Everybody loves Roschon in the building. He’s a leader, even in his rookie year. He’s a special player, and he’s going to be good for a long time.”

More: Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian: Portal helps, but recruiting high schools still key

Even though Hightower has his hands full as an NFL coach, he still keeps tabs on the UT program. He enrolled at Texas in the late 1990s on an academic scholarship and joined the football team as a walk-on. Generously listed at 5 feet 7, Hightower couldn’t play quarterback as he did at Aldine McArthur High School because of his size, but he emerged as a special teams dynamo who caught the eye of then-UT coach Mack Brown.

Hightower played in every game on special teams as a sophomore and junior before joining several fellow walk-ons — including current San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan — in receiving scholarships for their senior seasons in 2002. Brown and his staff also presented Hightower with the program’s D. Harold Byrd Leadership Award, which recognized a player’s selflessness and dedication to the team.

More: Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian reflects on careers of Nick Saban and Pete Carroll

Brown transformed Texas into a powerhouse during Hightower’s time in Austin. The lessons learned during that process have helped form the foundation of Hightower’s coaching career, which included several stints working with his friend and former teammate Shanahan.

“Just looking at the way Coach Brown ran his program and what he did at UT, he turned it from a boy to a man,” Hightower said. “Just the culture and how the culture is all about people. And bringing one another together is what I see happening with Sark now. Everyone is jelling and playing good team football together. Coaching is all about the camaraderie. It's the relationships you build that last a long time.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Texas football player Richard Hightower rising NFL coach