SUAMICO (NBC 26) — Some of the football coaching staff at Bay Port High School are closer than your average teammates. Meet the new head coach and his father, who started his love of the game.
- Meet Steve and Steven Jorgensen, two thirds of a father-son coaching trio who are on the Bay Port staff with Steven's brother Matt
- Bay Port High School plays against Kimberly High School Thursday for the new head coach's first home game
- Kimberly happens to be head coach Steven's alma mater, where his dad Steve coached him
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
Some of Bay Port's football coaching staff are closer than your average teammates. I'm your Howard-Suamico neighborhood reporter Pari Apostolakos. I caught up with the head coach about his job in what he calls "The family business."
Newly-minted head coach of Bay Port high school's football team, Steven Jorgensen, is gearing up for his first home game in his new role.
"There's nothing [that] I've experienced that teaches real world like football," Steven said. He has a lot of experience with the game, growing up as a ball and water boy for the teams his dad coached.
"Being around the game my whole life, seeing the way he impacted kids, on and off the field, there was nothing else I wanted to do," Steven said. "I always said if I could have a sliver of the success he had on and off the field, I'd be doing a pretty good job."
His job this week is to prepare his team to take on Kimberly High School, his alma mater, where he (of course) played football, and his dad was his coach.
"I didn't treat [my sons on the team] any different than anyone else," Steve Jorgensen, Steven's father, said at Bay Port's Wednesday practice. "They got it the worst."
Steve now works with him and his other son, Matt, on the Bay Port coaching staff.
"I'm very prideful they wanted to do what their dad did," Steve said. "Our blood and our ties are thicker than anything ... If I've done one thing right in life, my family is tight."
Steven says his dad certainly got coaching right, showing his sons and players how football can be more than a game.
"I think it teaches young men commitment," Steven said. "Commitment to something above themselves. Commitment to a team. When they grow up in life they're going to have to be committed to a partner, a wife, a team where they work and this teaches them that."
"It's about relationships and trying to make young men into men," Steve said.
Steven says there's no love lost on his part for Kimberly.
"We have great respect for them," Steven said. "But, in between the lines we're going to be competitive and we're going for a win."
Bay Port plays Kimberly High School Thursday night. The Jorgensens say they have high hopes for the season.
