What started as a simple story about Pen Argyl High School (Pennsylvania) hiring 23-year old Brady Mutton as its new head coach, is now a full-fledged search. When I saw Coach Mutton’s age, it put me on a mission — who is the youngest head varsity football coach ever in America?
To this point, we’ve had a lot of people helping with this nationwide search. For readers of the first version of this story, you discovered that Brady Mutton is not.
That honor, as of Wednesday, went to current Roseville (California) head coach Joe Cattolico, who was 22-years old when he was hired before the 1997 season by Overfelt High School in San Jose, California. In just his second season at the helm of Overfelt, Cattolico led the program to a California Central Coast Section II championship.
Now, four days later, there’s another coach in the running for the youngest ever in America.
I’ve been in-touch with current Brownsburg (Indiana) head coach John Hart, who became the head coach at Edwards County High School in Albion, Illinois in 1985 at the age of 22-years old. Coach Hart estimates that he was 22-years, 5 months old when he was hired by Edwards County.
Hart has won two Indiana state championships — Evansville Reitz in 2007 and Warren Central in 2009.
So, here’s the deal…we’re waiting to hear from Coach Cattolico to find-out how old he was when he was hired at Overfelt. However, please feel free to email me, if you know of any other coach 22-years old or young, please email us.
Editor’s Note: During our research we found other young varsity head football coaches that we’d like to salute. They are listed below.
Mark Bates, 23 – Los Angeles Baptist (California), 1998 *currently the head coach at Santa Clarita Christian School (California)
Phil Chrys, 23 – Weedsport Central HS (New York), 1977
Adam Colman, 23 – Burbank HS (California), 2017
Noel Dean, 23 – Burton Bendle HS (Michigan), 1991
Danny Esparza, 23 – West Valley HS (Alaska), 2009 *
Hired as the Head Coach at West Valley HS in Fairbanks, Alaska in November of 2009. I was 23 years old.
— Coach_Esparza (@CoachDannyE) February 20, 2020
Mitchell Parsley – Crowell HS (Texas), 2019
Here’s a young man who was hired in December in Texas https://t.co/UJHuEYkNMQ
— #TXHSFBCHAT (@txhsfbchat) February 20, 2020
Joe Ryan, 23 – Eureka HS (Illinois), 1993 *currently the head coach at Sycamore HS (Illinois)
