Ventura County’s all-time winningest high school football coach is now in the middle of his first season as head coach at Ventura College.
Coach Jon Mack spent 17 seasons as the head football coach at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura. Now he has taken on a new challenge of coaching at the college level, a decision that was not easy.
“It’s something I had been thinking about for 2 years,” said Mack. “I am very close to the juniors and seniors [at St. Bonaventure].”
His list of achievements is long. In his 17 seasons at St. Bonaventure Coach Mack went 167-47-1 winning 105 of his last 110 games. He led his team to 12 league titles, 7 CIF section titles and the 2005 state championship. With all of his high school coaching behind him, Coach Mack seems to be happy with decision to take over the Ventura Program.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Mack. “Right now we’re loving this.”
Everyone seems to think Coach Mack is the right man for the job. Ventura College Athletics Director and men’s Head Basketball Coach Greg Winslow believes that Mack will use his success he had in high school towards the Ventura program.
“He has been very successful in Ventura County”, said Winslow. “We hope that [Mack] restores the Ventura College program to a dominate football team.”
Mack’s peers expectations may be high, but nothings bigger than the success of Ventura’s continuous graduation rate of its football athletes. Ventura College has a 95 percent rate of graduating their football players and a 100 percent placement rate of football players to 4-year schools.
“We hope that he keeps graduating the students,” said Winslow.
Ventura College looks to Coach Mack to turn around a program that went an abysmal 3-7 last season. The Pirates are 2-1 in conference play this year and are looking to get better.
“We control our own destiny,” said Mack. “We’re in the thick of the race.”
On Sep. 22 the Pirates lost to Moorpark College in a tough 38-18 defeat. It was the 40th anniversary of the rivalry known as the Citrus Cup. Their next game is on Saturday at Santa Barbra. The Pirates are coming of a hard fought win against Compton College.
If the Pirates win the rest of their games they can win the conference. Mack has put dedication in turning Ventura College into a powerhouse program, with his expectations and goals apparent to all of his players.
“We would like to win the conference, and then the state and eventually the national championship,” said Mack.
