Young-Ortega bond goes deep, has taken Coatesville to new heights
CALN — On the first day of April in 2004, Anthony Young and his three sons moved into a newly constructed house in Coatesville.
In April of 2009, Matt Ortega resigned from his job as head coach at York High, packed up his wife and three sons and headed east to fill the same position at Coatesville.
As if it were an act of fate, the Ortega family bought a house in the same neighborhood as the Youngs.
Football was their immediate bond, but the underlying inspiration for both Young and Ortega was to find a place to raise their young sons into men. Both families chose to move to Coatesville, drawn by the communal spirit and blue collar backbone.
Now, in their 10th year together, Young and Ortega are not only figuring out fatherhood together, but are witnessing what can sprout when the right amount of talent on the field is nurtured with the right amount of character on and off of it.
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It was the winter of 2003 and Anthony Young was house hunting after a promotion with Pfizer. Born and raised in South Jersey, Young ventured into the Philly suburbs trying to find familiarity in an unfamiliar place.
“I started looking on mapquest and found a place called Honey Brook. I turned off the exit and drove around a little bit and said, ‘no way,’” Young recalled with a laugh.
He eventually landed on Coatesville, a place he could give his sons a “diverse community.”
As soon as they were old enough, Anthony signed his sons, Jordan, Avery and Aaron up to play pee-wee football for the Downingtown Young Whippets, following in the footsteps of his mother, Leila.
“This is my mom’s game,” Anthony said. “She still has a cowbell that she got when I was five. In high school she would kind of embarrass me. She’d be the baddest mom on the block for that game. I’d score and she’d be running down the sideline with me, ringing that bell.”
If highlights got the bell ringing, Jordan, Avery and Aaron kept things noisy, excelling on the gridiron from the get-go like their father before them.
Anthony was a star at Pemberton High and then at Temple University, which led to being drafted in the third round by the Indianapolis Colts. A neck injury cut his career short in the preseason of his second year but the love of football never left.
“Whenever you have success as a player like he’s had, these kids know him,” Ortega said. “They know his kids and what his kids are like and kids are going to read through someone who is fake. That’s the one thing they know about Coach Young, what he talks about, what he preaches, they know it’s real. He’s not just saying it, he backs it up.”
With his father, Roosevelt, in the Army, Anthony’s discipline and respect is still evident today, and his three sons, who he’s raised, mirror it. For as successful as the Young family has been — Jordan was a three-year starter at quarterback and is now a starting linebacker at Old Dominion, Avery played wide receiver and cornerback and is starting at corner as a freshman at Rutgers and Aaron is on the verge of becoming Coatesville’s career rush leader before heading to Michigan State next year — it’s hard to find anyone who could say anything negative about them. More times than not, it’s the opposite.
“At the end of the day, we’re family,” Anthony said. “We impact people through our sports and activity. For me, it’s the impact they had on their community. When I hear teachers or parents come up to me and not talk about football, but what type of kid they are, that’s what important. I’m proud of those moments.”
The feeling is mutual.
“He pushed me to work harder than my brothers,” Aaron said of his father. “I try to show out for my dad and impress him and do what I can do. … He just teaches me everything he knows and tries to instill it in me. He helps me a lot, especially at defensive back.”
Despite playing their pee-wee ball in Downingtown, Anthony said his boys couldn’t wait to get into the red and black of Coatesville, even when flashier opportunities came knocking.
“When Malvern Prep came and when St. Joe’s Prep came all three of them said, ‘dad, we want to play for our community,’” Anthony said. “That was important to them. To see little kids come to the fence to talk to Aaron or send them emails or having moms send emails about the impact the boys had on their kids, that’s been the phenomenal part.”
When the Ortegas moved into the neighborhood, the Youngs found them quickly, within the week, even.
From the get-go Anthony and Ortega connected, starting with a mutual acquaintance, Vince Hoch, who had coached Anthony at Temple and mentored Ortega in his early coaching days.
“From that point on it was a bond because of how much Vince meant to his life and how much he meant to my life and that’s what spear-headed our relationship,” Ortega said. “On top of that, being in the same development and being football guys with sons, it just kind of took off from there.”
After coaching his boys in youth football, Anthony had hoped to sit back and “be a dad” for awhile, but in his first game watching Jordan in 2013, he found himself running down to the fence to offer advice to the defensive backs. The fit was natural, and Anthony joined the staff.
Of course, the last three years with Ricky Ortega playing quarterback and Aaron at running back, Anthony has found himself chipping in more on the offensive side.
“I’m always telling (Matt) to run the ball,” Anthony joked.
Aaron and Ricky have become one of the most explosive duos in Ches-Mont League history, with Aaron compiling over 6500 yards of total offense and over 100 touchdowns and Ricky nearing 10,000 yards of total offense and 102 passing touchdowns.
“(Anthony) was a guy I always relied on for advice,” Matt said. “Once the guys came up we, were blessed to have him on our staff.”
As final days of a Young in a Coatesville uniform get closer and closer, the Ortega era is just getting started with another year from Ricky and his younger brothers Tommy and Matt Jr. on their way up.
Surely as much as Matt has absorbed from Anthony from a football standpoint, he’s taken as much in the fatherhood department.
“For me, the joy of it is just being together,” Anthony said. “Being with your guys, doing what we love to do, play football and making an impact on the little kids of this community.”
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After growing up along the Susquehanna River in Steelton, a small community outside Harrisburg, Matt Ortega saw something he recognized and liked in Coatesville.
“I could kind of see how things were changing, families are changing, times are changing and we really wanted to find that place where it gave that 1970’s, 1980’s feel with sports and the community,” Matt said. “When Coatesville came open, it just fit the model of what I wanted to raise my family in. Even in 2018 I feel like we still have a throwback feel to us and I think that gives us our edge. I feel that’s why we’ve been able to put everything together in terms of program and culture and tradition because it was here before we got here. We just kind of cultivated it.”
Steelton, as Matt describes it, is a smaller version of Coatesville. ArcelorMittal took over the Bethlehem Steel plant in both towns, and the way those same rugged traits that forge steel-like pride flow out of Coatesville make Matt feel at home.
Matt is old-school in the way that sports are an avenue to relationships. Working hard, and more importantly, working as a team or family, is the path to success and it’s been his model since he stepped on campus almost a decade ago.
In his 10th year as head coach, Matt has won 101 games as Coatesville’s head coach, and is playing for his third District 1 title, Friday against North Penn. The talent has certainly not hurt, but there has always been talent at Coatesville. While it may not have matched the talent of late, it’s been as much about building a culture as developing skill.
“There are ups and downs and things we’ve gone through, but even in life, do you point fingers or do you let it motivate you more?” Matt said. “Through the years, with the ups and downs, our players and my family and my staff have been able to move forward and see the positives and keep striving for success.”
The results came slowly but surely for Matt, who went 5-5 in his first season. By 2012, Coatesville was a surprise run-away in District 1 and the Red Raiders reached their first state championship game.
His path, from graduating from Central Dauphin to playing quarterback and safety at St. Francis University to coaching there and then bouncing around a couple high schools before Coatesville was finally paying off.
There by his side, always it seemed, was Ricky, who starred for the Coatesville Kid Raiders in his pee-wee days, and soaked up everything while his father was building Coatesville into a perennial state power.
“I had a lot of pride and a lot of fun,” Ricky said. “I used to be as nervous as him. I’d cry after games if they would lose or I’d be really happy if they won. I’d go out with him and be at every practice, throwing the ball around and I just took it real serious and had a lot of pride in that.”
With Ricky a few years younger than Jordan and Avery Young, it was Anthony and his boys that Matt got his first taste of coaching as a father.
“Our relationship is football and family,” Matt said of Anthony. “We have relied on each other heavily outside of football over the years.”
Coatesville was great in 2012 and they were very good in the following few years, but in 2016, when Ricky finally arrived at high school, that’s when something special began.
Since, Coatesville is 37-4, and Matt’s transition of being a coach to being a coach with his kid playing quarterback has been nothing short of remarkable.
“It’s been great,” Matt said. “It’s been a blessing we’ve been able to share that as a family. Also with that, it’s all his boys. All these kids when we moved here in ’09, these are the kids who played on Kid Raiders that I first saw in little league. It’s a special group to me because I’ve known them since they were eight or nine years old.”
Along with Anthony, Matt was constantly seeking out fathers who coached their kids — from Upper Dublin coach Bret Stover to West Allegheny’s Bob Palko —to pick their brains.
“I talked to a lot of coaches,” Matt said. “I sought all those guys out over the years to give me a couple pointers because I knew one day I was going to have to coach my son. I wanted to go in with a little bit of knowledge of the dos and don’ts. I think the biggest thing is not bringing it home.”
If it’s not business at home, there is definitely football. With three boys playing it and dad coaching it, mom, Corrie, is surrounded. But she’s no stranger to competition, herself. At St. Francis, Matt and Corrie met in athletics, as Corrie ran cross country and track.
“She’s where some of the speed from,” Matt said. “The javelin arm and the quarterback arm, that’s from me and the speed is from her.”
Ricky knows where his bread is buttered, and that Christmas is right around the corner.
“My mom’s the better athlete,” Ricky said. “My dad always complains that he got hurt or that he pulled an achilles or a hammy or whatever. My mom still runs and works out, he doesn’t do anything.”
What Matt may lack in athletic prowess these days he makes up for with a relentless pursuit of growth for his team, in and out of school. For Anthony, he couldn’t have picked a better coach to guide his boys, and he’s enjoyed the ride.
“It’s been incredible,” Anthony said of coaching with Matt. “It’s been humbling, it’s been rewarding and it’s been great because, at the same time we’re playing, we’re training our boys to be men through football in the community.”
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There is one more guaranteed game for Coatesville this season with a max of three if the Raiders can reach the state championship game.
Ricky has the Ches-Mont career passing record in his sights and likely some PIAA records if he continues his pace as a senior. Next year he and Tommy will be on the same team for the first time in their lives.
Anthony will likely still be on staff, though tracking his three son’s games around the country will be chore in itself, one he will gladly take on.
The accomplishments are great and they elicit well-deserved pride, but the moments that go uncharted in a box score or unseen in a hudl highlight will last a lifetime for fathers like Anthony and Matt, and all the others fortunate enough to be in similar positions.
Coatesville will be forever appreciative the Young and Ortega families decided to move into its community, but on this Thanksgiving, both families have as much to grateful for.
