SOMERSET, Texas — When longtime Texas high school football coaching legend Sonny Detmer passed away in late September, it hit hard in the community of Somerset where he was still the head football coach.

“Losing Sonny, we kind of lost the leader of everyone out here,” said Stevie Dorman, Detmer’s grandson and assistant coach at Somerset High School. “He was the head guy, he was the man, he was the guy who knew everything and everyone went to him for all the problems.”

Detmer was as a caretaker. Most notably he took care of his family but also for the countless number of kids he coached over five decades.

“If you love the kids, the stuff will fall into place and Sonny definitely loved every single kid, whether they were the starter or the backup,” said Dorman.

“The love and the passion he had for the kids and the game is what I try to carry the most,” said Koy Detmer Jr., one of Detmer’s grandsons.

Detmer was a football coach for 52 years. Much of that time was spent in the San Antonio area but he also had a few jobs in South Texas. He’s most known for coaching his sons Ty Detmer and Koy Detmer.

Ty Detmer set records as a quarterback at Southwest High School in San Antonio. He then went on to win the Heisman Trophy at BYU and spent more than a decade in the NFL. He coached Koy Detmer at Mission High School, where he set a then-state record for passing yards in a season in 1990. Koy Detmer went on to play in college at Colorado and also spent a decade in the NFL. What Sonny Detmer was doing with his boys in the ‘80s and ‘90s with the passing game at the high school level in Texas was far ahead of its time.

“Texas football was known for just running the ball and Sonny was one of the first ones to really pass the ball,” says Koal Detmer, one of Sonny Detmer’s grandsons. “People thought he was crazy throwing the ball like 20 times a game. It’s fun listening to the stories of how the game evolved and him having a big impact on that.”

When Ty and Koy Detmer's football careers were over, Sonny Detmer was still coaching and still guiding quarterbacks within the family. While he was the head coach at Somerset, Sonny Detmer was able to coach four of his grandsons at the QB position. There was Stevie Dorman, followed by Koy Detmer Jr., right behind him was Zadock Dinkelman, and now the current Bulldog QB is Koal Detmer.

“He always believed in us and he knew what we could do,” said Dinkelmann. “He always put us in the best situation for success.”

Those grandsons are now helping carry on the legacy left by Sonny Detmer. Stevie Dorman is an assistant coach at Somerset and is coaching his younger cousin, Koal Detmer, at the QB spot. Koy Detmer Jr. just finished his college career and is now an assistant coach at Texas A&M Kingsville. The same school where his cousin, Dinkelman, is now the quarterback.

“Three generations of quarterbacks playing good football and on the other side coaching good football,” said Koy Detmer Jr. “Coaching people within the family is really cool and really special.”

While all these grandsons carry on in their football journey, they are forever impacted the lessons Sonny Detmer taught.

“They show up in spurts and situations where you remember, that’s what Sonny did or that’s what Sonny would do,” said Koy Detmer Jr.

“You can only dream to be half the man he was with how well he treated everybody,” said Dinkelmann.