On any given Tuesday or Thursday after work, you can catch as many as 80 staff members pounding the pavement of the Capitol grounds. It’s a way to help the staff get healthier; but even more so, it’s a way to save the state of Texas thousands of dollars in health care costs.
Perry's plan comes a month after Texas was announced at the bottom of the pack out of the 50 states on health care report cards and top of the list in rates of uninsured citizens. So why not start at home?
“Considering the wide range of illnesses and ailments directly linked to poor eating choices and a sedentary lifestyle, it’s up to each one of us to make the kinds of decisions now that can keep us healthier and happier in the years and decades to come,” says Governor Perry. "From an employer’s perspective, healthier employees take fewer sick days, are more productive, and require fewer trips to the doctor or, God forbid, the emergency room. That’s good for business, good for Texas and good for America."
The idea is based on RunTex CEO Paul Carrozza’s successful ATX Training program that can be altered to accommodate different groups with different goals.
Carrozza took that highly successful model and developed a program for the Governor’s staff that combines life changing seminars every Tuesday during staffers' lunch with athletic training after work.
The Texas Athletic Team is now running, walking and building muscle tone for their ultimate goal: The Texas Grand Prix. It’s a 5K race on Nov 3 at the new Formula 1 race track, which will take runners once around the track.
For those of you who have been following the ATX100 team's progress — which this Governor’s Athletic Team is based upon — you know they also had a race goal: the 2012 Statesman Capitol 10K back in March.
If you're not familiar with them, the ATX100 started the September prior and is a program designed for folks wanting to lose 100 pounds each. They met every week as many as three times for running, walking or hill training.
Most of them could never imagine completing 6.2 miles in a 10K. But on that morning they were looking and feeling good, inspiring us all.
Joe Bacon had been the spokesperson for team ATX100, and he has not strayed from his mission to get fit. His goal was to not finish last in the race. And he didn’t. Now he’s working towards next year’s half marathon.
Bacon and the rest of ATX100 inspired other ATX programs, and Carrozza couldn’t be more thrilled with the success.
"If you can make a person feel like they’re an athlete, they’ll act like one,” says Carrozza. “I found what I am going to do for the next decade." His goal is to, “create purpose, create structure and create a dream.”
The hope is to keep the model growing every year. By January 2013, Carrozza wants to offer all state employees the chance to be a part of the “Texas Athletic Department.” And then once in place, he'll take the program to every city in the state, challenging each Mayor to get their own town moving.
Hopefully, Carrozza and the Texas Athletic Team can send Texas to the top of a rankings list we can be proud of, as the Healthiest State in the country.
Written by and starring Jared Bonner, "Pickleheads" is a mockumentary about Austin's favorite sport: pickleball.
A deeply unserious new mockumentary out of Austin is memorializing the city's obsession with pickleball. Pickleheads— a sports comedy directed by Josh Flanagan and written by and starring Jared Bonner— premiered in fall 2025 at the Austin Film Festival. Now the film has dropped an official trailer ahead of its Los Angeles premiere March 1 at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Pickleheads follows disgraced ping pong champion Barney “The Butcher” Bardot (Bonner), whose spectacular fall from grace, involving an on-court bodily betrayal and personal tragedy, sends him into hiding for nine years.
“Everyone says trust your gut,” Barney intones in the beginning of the film. “But what happens when your gut betrays that trust? It murders your mom.”
Yes, it’s that kind of movie.
Barney is to find redemption in an unlikely place: pickleball, the paddle sport that has loudly taken over Austin. His brother attempts to chronicle the comeback by creating a film about it.
The cast blends recognizable faces with the film's indie energy. Harvey Guillén (Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows) pops up as a debt collector in a small but scene-stealing role. John O'Hurley (J. Peterman in Seinfeld) appears as himself in a mock sports media setting. Kristine Froseth, Pej Vahdat, Adrianne Palicki, Eric Nelsen, Ryan Cooper, and Lindsey Morgan round out the ensemble.
Viewers may also recognize comedian and disability advocate Zach Anner in a supporting role. Anner, known for his offbeat humor and online presence, fits neatly into the film’s chaotic energy.
Harvey Guillén, Kristine Froseth, Jared Bonner, Ryan Cooper, and Pej Vahdat are just some of the cast in Pickleheads. Photo courtesy of Pickleheads
Bonner, who moved to Austin four years ago, found his inspiration the same way many locals did: by picking up a paddle. After wrapping his previous mockumentary, Dance Dads, he started playing obsessively.
“I just went out to the park and played with strangers every day, and just played nonstop,” he says. “I was looking for my next mockumentary, and I was like, how ridiculous is this sport? … I wanted to capture the boom of a grassroots sport.”
The result is a film that leans into the absurdity of backyard tournaments and neighborhood turf wars, including a running joke about tennis players infiltrating pickleball courts.
Shot over 12 days in and around Austin, Pickleheads features familiar sights for locals: sweeping shots of the 360 Bridge, suburban courts and houses out in Dripping Springs, and distinctly Texas features, like an armadillo sanctuary. The production also staged its climactic tournament at a North Austin pickleball facility, underscoring Bonner’s claim that Austin is “the capital of pickleball.”
Improv, Bonner says, was key to the film's tone.
“There’s so much freedom compared to 'stand in this light and deliver the line,'” he says. “To see them kind of open up and explore the character ... it just was an absolute dream.”
That looseness translates into a meandering and silly comedy packed with deadpan interviews, rivalry melodrama, and escalating nonsense — including a hostage subplot and a final pickleball tournament showdown.
Despite the absurdity, Bonner insists there’s a sincere goal beneath the jokes. With minimal profanity and a broad comedic style that swings from physical gags to mock-serious sports commentary, Pickleheads aims to be as inclusive as the sport itself.
“I really want to bring in everybody to just laugh at a movie,” he says. “There’s too much dividing us.”
Bonner says the film's reception at the Austin Film Festival was “electric” with “laughter every seven seconds.” Right now the team is courting distributors, with hopes of landing on a major streaming platform later this year, and certainly some sort of pickleball-themed viewing party here in Austin.
As the details coalesce, Bonner advises folks to follow along on Instagram to find out where they can watch the movie at home, or perhaps, at a pickleball court here in Austin for its launch.
An ATX100 Team preparing for the start of a race.
RunTex CEO Paul Carrozza.
Harvey Guillén, Kristine Froseth, Jared Bonner, Ryan Cooper, and Pej Vahdat are just some of the cast in Pickleheads. Photo courtesy of Pickleheads