The “Forget About Me, I Love You” Era has arrived at Eaglecrest High School.
Eaglecrest hired Green Mountain’s Jesse German as its next head football coach. German brings his F.A.M.I.L.Y. mantra and a recent history of success at the Class 3A level over to Class 5A after the Raptors lost Mike Schmitt to a coaching/AD job in Louisiana.
German called the Eaglecrest job “a really good opportunity that I wasn’t able to pass by for a lot of reasons.”
“There’s a chance to be special here,” German said. “Another part is, they’re in the SEC of Colorado (in the Centennial League). You’ve got Cherry Creek, Grandview, Arapahoe, Cherokee Trail all in the league. I love competition, I love challenges, and it ended up being a great opportunity.”
The 44-year-old Texas native previously coached in his home state, then at Bear Creek and at Northfield before spending eight seasons at Green Mountain, the last six as head coach. In his time as the boss, he morphed the Rams into a state title contender. He has a 52-17 record as a head coach and will start working as a teacher at EHS this fall.
He let his Green Mountain players know of his departure in an emotional meeting on Friday afternoon.
“I’m most proud of the relationships with the kids,” German said. “The winning is a byproduct of the authenticity (of those relationships). I’m proud we won the conference championship for the first time in 19 years; that we had the most wins in Class 3A in the last six years (with 52); I’m proud we went to the semifinals three times in the last six years, but ultimately I think we just did a solid job of preparing kids for life.”
Eaglecrest athletic director Vince Orlando called German “the right choice to lead the next chapter of Raptor football.”
“His track record of success speaks for itself but he came highly recommended from a number of people in the football community,” Orlando said. “We expect Coach German to have a significant impact in pushing our program to be a perennial contender in the 5A football landscape.”
The Raptors were 7-4 and lost in the first round of the playoffs in the last two seasons under Schmitt, who was in his second stint as the Eaglecrest head coach. He also served in that role from 2009 to ‘2017, the final season of which he led Eaglecrest to the state title game. The Raptors lost in an instant-classic shootout to Pomona that went down as the highest-scoring Class 5A championship ever.
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