Jimmy Nolan knows the challenges but eager to turn around struggling Costa Mesa

New Costa Mesa football coach Jimmy Nolan, who was coaching Fountain Valley, gets a hug from Santa Ana Coach Charlie TeGantvoort after a CIF playoff game (File photo Fernando M. Donado, For OC Sports Zone)

Costa Mesa High’s new football coach Jimmy Nolan has already heard the skeptics.

“So many people said, and this is even before I thought about the job, ‘it’s impossible to win at Mesa,'” Nolan said this week. “And all it said to me was, ‘what an amazing job and I would kill for that job. That’s fantastic, that’s incredible, I want those guys.”

Nolan, who coached at Fountain Valley High the past three seasons, resigned at the end of the season, telling the Orange County Register that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Now, about three months later, Nolan is back coaching football again and leading a Costa Mesa team that was 0-10 last season and has won just four games in three seasons. He was scheduled to meet with his new team Thursday.

Nolan talked about his new job this week with OC Sports Zone.

What are your goals for Costa Mesa?

Nolan: With any team I’ve been with, my goal is to teach these kids, it’s not what you’ve done, but what you’re doing now and what you’re going to do, whether you just won a ring and a CIF championship or whether you just lost 10 games, it makes no difference. It’s all in the past. So I can live off of my rings and my accolades, but no, that’s not what winners do. They work hard every day. And they want to go to bed at night and look in the mirror and be proud of themselves so I want these kids to learn how to work.

I always say, ‘we don’t have a hell week.’ What the heck is a hell week? We’re going to work real hard for a week to get ready for the season? No, we’re going to have a hell year, so the minute I get back, we will start Mustang football on Thursday. So we’re going to jump right into it. I felt like I had 50 kids last Thursday when I spoke to the team and first met them. But I said to myself, ‘we probably only really have three in here.’ And I’ll soon find out what that means because the real definition of a man is what he does when he’s faced with adversity. So I’m going to push these guys to their breaking point and see which kid refuses to give up. So day one, we will probably only have two or three if we’re lucky. But I hope in five months from now, I’ll have 11 guys who don’t give up and certainly will never quit.

So win, lose or draw, my goal is that these boys learn a lot about life so regardless of the sport of football, we learn life lessons moving forward and how to persevere and how to fight through adversity, how to over-achieve and how to do things with integrity. Not lie to ourselves, not lie to others. Be good sons, be good brothers, be good husbands one day, be good fathers one day: all these life lessons that you really do get from the sport of football.

Wins are wins and losses are losses. But sometimes a win is just as hurtful as a loss. I’ve won or coached plenty of games where I was just as upset as when I lose. It’s all about how you play. I can be just as happy during a loss as I am with a win if my boys lay it all out there on the field.

When you left Fountain Valley you said that it was time to spend more time with your family. Now, you’re back coaching.

Nolan: It’s been a least a quarter of a year, so I did do just that. Happy wife, happy life, and we had a really good time but now in order to keep good balance, I think it’s probably smart of me to get the heck out of the house and back to football. I have a very supportive family (his wife, three daughters and a son). It’s like pigskin daycare, they come with me to practice. They’re all under 10 years old and it’s awesome. It’s been a really nice break with the family and I’ve really focused on my career (he runs Speedkills training program). I’ve gotten everything up to where I want it to be to allow me to go back to coaching. Let’s face it, we’re not getting rich with a small stipend. I’m not complaining, it’s what I like to do, it’s my passion, it’s my golf game. Some people golf, I coach football.

How do you turn around the Costa Mesa program?

Nolan: Maybe I’ll get some four leaf clovers, some lucky dice and a bunch of lady bugs and a rabbit’s foot and throw it in a blender and whala. Magic. That’s a good question. There are no shortcuts. It’s just hard work. It’s when you feel like giving up and you keep fighting through it. High school football is the one level where you can win with small kids. It’s an old saying, ‘it’s not the size of the dog in the fight it’s the size of the fight in the dog.’ I really, really believe that. I think I got my PHD in teaching kids how to overachieve because I had to be that kid (as a safety when he played for Mater Dei). So I know all the little tricks of the trade to be able to be able to fight that David vs. Goliath deal. I plan on getting serious about making these guys commit and I’m talking about all in, every last one of them, from the kid who scores all the touchdowns to the kid who never plays a down.

Any kid who goes through my program, will be very proud of himself because he went through hell and through all that, these kids really bond together. So I should have 20 to 30 maybe more Mustangs who are one heartbeat ready to take on anybody. We hope to really walk into Friday nights with a lot of confidence and it might be foolish, because maybe sometimes we don’t have a chance to win. But you won’t be able to convince me nor my boys that. We need to know that we’re dangerous, but you don’t pretend you are the day of the game by putting on your favorite song on the radio. You earn that now, that starts yesterday. That’s the fun of this whole gig and that’s why I wanted this job.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com