In a year when nearly everything is virtual, Homer football team learns from virtual coaches

Before he became the head football coach at Homer High School last season, Justin Zank was the coach at nearby Voznsenka, a school with about 35 high school students.

He drew players from Voznesenka and two other tiny schools, but even then he typically had 15 to 16 players each season. All three schools are located in Russian Old Believers villages, where Russian is as common as English and on any given day players might be absent because of religious obligations or chores that need to be done at home.

Now Zank is at Homer High, which has about 400 high school students and more than 40 players on the football team. One of Zank’s assistant coaches described the transition perfectly: “Dude, coming from Voznesenka to Homer, that’s like taking over Clemson.”

The assistant coach who said that is John Jessen, who won three state championships in 27 years at Bartlett High, a school with an enrollment of about 1,400 and routinely draws more than 100 kids for football.

Jessen, 56, retired as the Bartlett coach after last season but he couldn’t quit football, so he called Zank and landed a volunteer gig as an offensive line coach for the Mariners. And dude, that’s like going from the NBA to Hoosiers.

He loves it.

And being able to coach from the comfort of a recliner is only one reason why.

In a year that has seen almost everything go virtual, Jessen is one of two assistant coaches helping the Mariners from afar thanks to Zoom meetings and other technological tools.

Jessen participates on a computer while sitting at home in Anchorage. A coaching friend of his, Brad Del Bon, does the same thing, except he’s in California.

During weekday practices, Jessen and Del Bon rely on the help of Homer’s three team managers, who take turns standing behind the quarterback and recording the action with an iPad.

Donations from Revolution Sport and Spine Therapy equipped the Mariners with iPads that have waterproof Bluetooth speakers, and the entire football field has wi-fi, Zank said. If they want to, he said, they can broadcast comments from Jessen and Del Bon over the public-address system.

“Brad will talk the whole time,” Zank said. “He’ll tell (the manager), ‘Put me here, take me there,' and the girls move with him.”

Jessen watches the offensive line on his laptop, making sure players take the right angles and the right number of steps.

“There’s a speaker attached to the iPad, so I can coach and there’s just a one-second delay,” he said. “I ask them to put their thumbs up so I know they’re listening.”

Jessen got to know the players in person at a preseason camp and he joins them on game days, which means a 440-mile single-day roundtrip if the game is in Homer. This weekend, he heads to Homer again for a Saturday afternoon game against Kenai.

Last week the Mariners played a Friday night game in Nikiski, and Jessen was late. He’s still a special education teacher at Bartlett, so he can’t hit the road for Friday night games until after school is out.

“There’s a years-long nightmare I’ve been having that I’m late for my own game, that I can hear it on the radio,” Jessen said. “I was listening to the radio on the way to Nikiski and we were down 7-0. We got some offensive procedure penalties, and I’m cussing at the radio.”

By the time Jessen got to the game, Homer had seized the lead and was on its way to a 50-7 victory. The Mariners are 2-1 heading into Saturday’s game.

Jessen said he called Zank this summer because he realized he didn’t want to step away from coaching but didn’t want to be an assistant coach in Anchorage. He wanted new Bartlett coach Chance Matsuoka to be able to create his own culture, and he didn’t want to be an assistant at any other Anchorage school and have to coach against the Golden Bears. His wife’s parents live in Homer, so the Mariners seemed like a good fit.

“I didn’t know who he was at first,” Zank said. “He left a message and I let my athletic director know and he said, ‘John Jessen’s a legend.’ Then I found out that he was.”

When players learned a coach from an Anchorage powerhouse was joining the staff, they peppered Jessen with questions. Was he the head coach? Yes. Did he ever win a state championship? Yes. Did the team get championship rings? Yes.

“The kids really like him,” Zank said. “He’s a funny guy and he builds relationships super quickly.”

Both men said they’re benefitting from the unusual situation. Jessen likes that Homer is a small town with only one high school. Zank likes Jessen’s sense of humor and football IQ.

Said Jessen: “I’ve never played in or coached a small school before, and it’s really different. I’m learning a lot. You don’t have as many kids so you have to make every kid a resource. An injury could cripple you. You have to figure out what you’re going to run based on numbers.”

Said Zank: “He’s a master of the mental part of the game. On game days he’s excellent. He’s talking the guys up, and if there’s a mistake, when those guys come off the field he’ll pull them aside and coach them up positively. He always quick to point out the positive. Plus he’s a funny guy and he keeps me light on the sideline."

There’s no question who’s in charge though, even though Jessen brings a big personality to the team. He favors loud colors, and when he and Shelly Schroeder were married two years ago -- in a ceremony at the 50-yard line of Bartlett’s football stadium -- he wore a Bartlett sweatshirt and multicolored tie-dyed pants.

Jessen said Zank told him to keep the tie-dye in Anchorage.

“That is 100% true,” Zank said. “I told him I would have to fire him. So he wore them the next day.”

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the location of the Homer-Kenai game. It is in Homer.

[Because of a high volume of comments requiring moderation, we are temporarily disabling comments on many of our articles so editors can focus on the coronavirus crisis and other coverage. We invite you to write a letter to the editor or reach out directly if you’d like to communicate with us about a particular article. Thanks.]