Irvington football coach Anthony Jackson has resigned, he told the Bay Area News Group.
Jackson said that changes in Irvington’s athletic administration left him feeling excluded as he tried to build on the early success his program had. The Vikings went 5-5 and 6-4 in Jackson’s first two seasons and improved to 7-4 this year, making the North Coast Section playoffs for the first time in his tenure.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing this fall. Jackson was suspended for two games after allowing an ineligible player to practice, which he attributed to assuming the player’s transfer would be approved for immediate eligibility.
“At the end of last year, we had an athletic director change,” Jackson said. “I felt like it was one of those situations that we see in sports all the time, where if you’re of the previous regime, sometimes you run afoul of the current regime. And I felt like after some of the things that we have been through this year, it was obvious to me that my goals, my aspirations and my vision for the program no longer matched with the visions and aspirations of the administration.”
Irvington athletic directors Jennifer Gribben and Nels Larson did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Bay Area News Group.
Jackson said he was frozen out of opportunities to discipline his players and monitor their on-campus conduct, which he says was a key component of his ability to build relationships and keep up on the pulse of his players as an off-campus coach. Jackson’s day job is based at Cal State-East Bay, where he works as a student success navigator.
“In order for me to be an effective leader, I have to be given the opportunity to lead,” Jackson said. “There’s instances this year where I was stripped of that ability and where it felt like if I’m not going to be able to coach the football team on and off the field, I’m not going to be involved with them on and off the field, if I’m only able to interact with them in one portion of their lives, then you’re stripping my effectiveness.
“I felt like it got to a point where they wanted to co-coach the program.”
As Jackson surveyed his new reality at Irvington, he determined that it would be best for him to move on.
“They may feel like the things that I value, the way that I express myself, the way that I handle situations with the student-athletes maybe just doesn’t mesh with how they want the program to be,” Jackson said.
The backdrop of Jackson’s resignation is the broader scope of football’s relevance in the Fremont Unified School District.
All four FUSD schools that play football (Mission San Jose dropped its program in 2016) share Tak Fudenna Stadium, a district-wide field located on the campus of Washington High.
This means that Washington is the only Fremont high school to have true “home” games during the season – the Huskies even get to stay home for multiple “road” matchups over the course of the year, including their game against Irvington this year.
“We had to draw lines on our (practice) field,” Jackson said. “There’s holes in it, big holes on it. The attention paid to it, the importance of it, the grace shown towards football is definitely different in different places.”
Jackson said he has communicated about his departure with some of Irvington’s players, and while “they’re a little bit shook,” they are resilient.
He added that he plans to take a hiatus from coaching for the time being.
“Right now, I’m just going to take a second to hang out with my wife and son and decompress a little bit and enjoy the success and the time that I did have at Irvington, and just look at it in the rearview mirror for a second,” Jackson said.
