New El Capitan High football coach excited for opportunity to turn Gauchos into a winner
El Capitan High School administrators hope the revolving door at head football coach has finally stopped with the recent hiring of new coach Jordan Irsik.
Irsik, 27, becomes the Gauchos third head coach in three years and sixth head coach since the school opened in 2013. He takes over the program after Anthony Martinez was fired after one season.
After unsuccessfully promoting assistant coaches from within the program the last three times the Gauchos coaching job became available, the school brings in Irsik from out of state.
“We need that right guy,” said El Capitan athletic director Rodd Parker. “We’ve gone through many coaches in the last couple years and we need stability in the program. We believe Jordan will bring that stability and enthusiasm to get our players to go out and play hard.”
Irsik will teach special education at El Capitan and starts on Jan. 9, which will allow him to get the ball rolling for the Gauchos football program this offseason.
Irsik started his coaching career at the age of 20 and has been coaching high school and college football the past seven seasons. He has had assistant coach stops at Wamego High School (Kansas) and Garden City High School (Kansas) before being named the head coach at Syracuse High School in Kansas in 2020.
Irsik spent one year as the assistant defensive coordinator at Folsom High and then took a job as the defensive backs coach at Rocky Mountain College in Colorado this past season.
“We’re hoping this is the last stop,” said Irsik, who will teach special education at El Capitan. “We’ve moved around a lot and we want to start a family soon. We want to be in one place, make a good living and be close to family. I feel El Capitan is a program with a lot of potential.”
So far the school has been unable to find the right coach to unlock that potential.
The Gauchos went 1-9 this past season under Martinez, snapping a 20-game losing streak with a 31-14 victory over Central Valley in the final game.
The program has never won more than three games in a season and has compiled a 3-41 record the past five years. The program has just 10 wins since 2013.
“It’s tough to find coaches who want to come into a struggling program and turn things around,” Parker said. “They want to come into wining programs. Jordan wants to come in and make his mark on El Capitan football and that excited us. He has a plan and we think the program can be successful with that plan in place.”
Irsik has been a part of one of the most successful programs in the Sac-Joaquin Section in Folsom. He’s also been a part of coaching staffs that have turned around programs.
Wamego won their first regional championship in 40 years while Irsik was an assistant coach there. Syracuse High School finished as runner-up in their conference for the first time since 1999 with Irsik serving as head coach.
Irsik knows getting the El Capitan football program off the ground will be a challenge.
“I definitely embrace it,” he said. “It’s a little bit more fulfilling if the job is a bigger challenge.”
Irsik wants to start building a foundation that expands off the football field.
“The big thing I’ll talk about with the kids the very first day is the three pillars of success, which is character, academics and football in that order,” Irsik said. “We have to handle our business in the classroom. We have to be leaders on campus. We can’t be the kids in the office all the time, getting in trouble. We have to be leaders on campus and if we can do that it will carry out to football.”
Irsik says talking to staff, there are already some good football coaches on campus that he hopes will join his staff. He’s already been watching video to get to know his players.
Irsik comes to a school that plans to build a new $8 million football stadium. The Merced Union High School District announced they were in the beginning planning phases of adding on-campus football stadiums to both Buhach Colony and El Capitan high schools in the near future.
Irsik says he plans to run an offense similar to the offense run at Folsom.
“There’s a lot of good things in place there to be successful,” Irsik said. “It might take time but I’m willing to take the time to see it through.”
