Texas Coach Steve Sarkisian: After Learning His Daughter Went Missing in the Texas Flood, a Father Faced His Worst Nightmare—Until Coach Sarkisian Brought Hope

Michael Thompson hadn’t slept in two days. Not since the call that turned his world upside down. The 40-year-old warehouse manager from Austin, Texas, had been watching the news on the historic flood tearing through Central Texas when his phone rang. On the other end was a frantic voice—his ex-wife, screaming over a bad signal: “It’s Lily. I can’t find her. The water… it took the car.”

The line went dead.

From that moment on, Michael became a father with a singular purpose—find his 10-year-old daughter, Lily. In the blink of an eye, a once-ordinary life became a desperate search amid collapsed bridges, submerged roads, and rising waters. He joined the ranks of hundreds of volunteers and frantic parents who had lost contact with loved ones in what was quickly becoming the worst natural disaster to hit the area in decades.

The flooding had been swift and cruel. Dozens of rivers overflowed in a matter of hours after relentless rainfall battered the state. Small towns were swallowed whole. Families were torn apart. Among them was Michael and Lily, whose last known location had been the back seat of a neighbor’s car en route to school. The vehicle was later found upside down in a ditch outside Bastrop. Lily was not inside.

Michael’s face was soon all over local television. A news photo of him standing knee-deep in brown floodwaters, holding up a battered picture of Lily in a Ziploc bag, became the haunting image of a state’s shared grief. He had turned down food, ignored calls, refused to leave. He only repeated one thing over and over: “Please, help me find my little girl.”

That image made its way across the internet, and into hearts nationwide. Then, it reached the desk of someone who’d been quietly coordinating his own form of response: Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian.

Sarkisian, who had seen many tough moments as a coach, a mentor, and a father himself, was deeply affected. “That man’s pain… I could feel it through the screen,” he would later say. “And I couldn’t sit still anymore.”

The Longhorns program had already pledged funds to aid relief efforts, and several players were volunteering at local shelters. But Sarkisian wanted to do something personal. Something real. Without any press or fanfare, he canceled all appointments and drove three hours to Bastrop in an unmarked truck, armed with bottled water, blankets, a first aid kit—and one more thing: a plan.

No cameras followed. No PR rep coordinated his appearance. Steve Sarkisian arrived not as a coach of a top-10 football program, but as a father and a man. He found Michael near a church being used as a temporary shelter, barely upright from exhaustion. Without introducing himself, Sarkisian handed him a thermos of hot coffee, sat beside him in the mud, and simply said, “I’m here to help you find her.”

At first, Michael didn’t recognize him. His eyes were sunken, his thoughts racing. But as they talked and plans were shared—coordinates, last sightings, search zones—Michael finally looked up. “You’re… you’re the Longhorns coach,” he said quietly. Sarkisian nodded once. “Right now, I’m just a dad who wants to help another dad.”

And help he did.

For the next 36 hours, Steve Sarkisian stayed by Michael’s side. He used his personal network to connect with local law enforcement and brought in drone support from a tech partner affiliated with UT. He rallied dozens of Longhorns athletes to create organized search crews, each combing through areas Michael had begged others to look through.

One moment would come to define the entire effort. On the morning of the third day, Sarkisian received an update from a volunteer team near Cedar Creek. A little girl had been spotted clinging to the roof of a collapsed barn, miraculously above water, waving what appeared to be a soaked school folder.

A helicopter was dispatched.

It was Lily.

Bruised, dehydrated, and terrified—but alive.

When Michael was told the news, he collapsed into Sarkisian’s arms, shaking uncontrollably. “You found her,” he wept. “You found my baby.” Sarkisian said nothing at first. He just held the broken man who, only hours earlier, had been the face of every parent’s worst nightmare.

What happened next captured the hearts of the country.

Photos of Sarkisian lifting Lily out of the rescue vehicle, cradling her like she was his own daughter, went viral. Sports fans and non-sports fans alike flooded social media with words like “heroic,” “angelic,” and “inspirational.” But Sarkisian deflected all praise.

“This was never about me,” he said at a press briefing held days later. “It was about one father’s love for his daughter. I was lucky enough to be there when he needed someone.”

The Longhorns coach wasn’t done.

The very next day, Sarkisian announced the creation of the Lily Grace Foundation, a partnership between the University of Texas Athletics Department and several local nonprofits, to provide emergency housing, search-and-rescue equipment, and mental health support for families affected by natural disasters. In his statement, Sarkisian said, “If we can give just one more parent a second chance like Michael got, it’s all worth it.”

Donations poured in.

Lily was reunited with her mother, and her first words after recovery became part of the healing lore: “I knew Daddy was looking for me.” Her favorite color—orange—was quickly adopted as a symbol for the rescue effort. At the next Longhorns home game, she was the honorary guest of the team, walking hand-in-hand with Sarkisian and her father onto the field before the crowd roared in unison.

Texas wore helmet decals that read #HopeForLily.

Michael, now recovering from the ordeal with his daughter back in his arms, spoke with tears of gratitude. “I thought I’d lost her forever. And then a football coach showed up and reminded me that there are still good men in this world. He didn’t have to come. But he did. And because he did… my baby’s alive.”

It’s easy to forget sometimes that beneath the headlines and hashtags, sports figures are more than coaches or celebrities—they’re people. But every once in a while, someone steps beyond the sidelines and reminds us what leadership really means.

For Steve Sarkisian, it wasn’t a playbook or a press conference that made the difference. It was a truck, a flashlight, a father’s instinct—and a heart big enough to carry someone else’s sorrow.

And for Michael and Lily, it was a miracle born not just of hope, but of action.

The flood took much from Texas that week.

But it also gave something back—a story of redemption, unity, and the simple, unstoppable power of showing up.