Ponder ISD coach headed home after about two months in the hospital following East Texas shot put injury

Ponder ISD assistant coach Blake Crutsinger was headed home from the hospital on July 2 after a stay of about two months that began when a shot put struck him at a regional track meet in East Texas, according to an update from his wife, Leslie Crutsinger, that the Nocona ISD Athletics account posted publicly.

Ponder ISD's athletics directory lists Crutsinger as an assistant football coach and an assistant track coach.

The account of the injury comes from a fundraiser page organized on behalf of Leslie Crutsinger. That page says a shot put hit Crutsinger during a regional track meet and that he was in intensive care afterward. It was created on May 5, placing the start of his hospitalization in the first week of that month.

UIL's regional listing sets the 2026 Conference 3A Region II track and field meet for May 1 and 2 at Whitehouse High School in Whitehouse, which matches the East Texas regional setting the fundraiser describes. No public record reviewed for this report identifies the meet where the injury happened.

Measured from the early May hospitalization the fundraiser page describes to the July 2 update, the hospital stay runs roughly two months.

How the throw came to hit Crutsinger has not been described in any public record available for this report. The fundraiser page does not lay out the sequence of events, and no statement from a district or from the league on the circumstances has been published. Neither the fundraiser page nor the July 2 update describes the injuries he was treated for. The records reviewed here contain no Ponder ISD statement on his condition or his coaching duties.

Shot put is a standard field event under UIL's track and field plan, which sets the boys implement at 12 pounds and the girls implement at 4 kilograms.

For the Region II-3A spring meet, UIL lists Tyler Junior College as the regional host and names Renee Risinger as the track and field director.

The National Federation of State High School Associations listed throwing-event safety as a 2026 point of emphasis for track and field, naming shot put, discus, javelin and restricted areas among its safety priorities.

The verified public record shows an injury reported in early May and a family update on July 2 saying Crutsinger was on his way home. It does not include a diagnosis, a prognosis or a date for any return to the sidelines.