Modesto Christian football coach Bryan resigns after a season. What’s next?
Modesto Christian High School begins its second search for a head football coach in two years after Kurt Bryan, the Crusaders’ coach for the 2023 season, stepped down Tuesday.
Bryan and the Crusaders finished 2023 with a 2-8 record, with wins in two of their first three games. They beat Esparto in their season opener, 50-13, and two games later, pulled out a 20-13 win over Berean Christian.
Bryan’s hiring was announced in March 2023. He took over for Jerry Grimshaw, who left to help build the football program at Simpson University in Redding. In addition to taking over as head coach, he called offensive plays. Bryan also took on a role as director of development at Modesto Christian to bring new programs to the school.
“Dear MC Football Family, After much deliberation and prayer with my family, I wanted to let you know that I have resigned from Modesto Christian,” Bryan said in an email sent to The Bee and Modesto Christian football. “To be clear, it was one of the toughest decisions of my professional life.”
Bryan, who lives in the East Bay Area, said his position as director of development was part of staffing cuts and he was offered to return as the head football coach only. He said he was “grateful” for the opportunity.
“Moving forward I cannot guarantee that any new job I accept outside of MC would allow me to coach football,” he said in the email. “Therefore, the right thing to do was to step away at this time.”
In a phone conversation with The Bee on Wednesday, Bryan said he will “pursue some other opportunities and we’ll see what happens.”
“The people at MC were great, especially Greg (Pearce, vice principal and athletic director) and Val (Sutter, the head of school) and the front office and the assistant coaches and most importantly the kids,” Bryan said Wednesday. “We’re very proud that off of our tiny roster, four kids got scholarships. I mean, that’s a testimony to everybody involved.”
Pearce said his first step in keeping the football program alive starts with transparency with the families. He told The Bee on Wednesday that the plan is to move forward with hiring a new coach, having an off-season program and moving into the fall with a football team.
“I want to thank coach Bryan, I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He brought a lot of energy, a lot of positive things and I’m gonna miss him. He did a lot of good things for the school,” Pearce said in a phone interview. “For the school, we’re being positive. We’re moving forward in a search for a coach and we’re asking people to trust and believe in the ability to find the next coach. We plan to fulfill our schedule next year.”
The goal is to hire the new coach ASAP, Pearce said, and one of the candidates will be Nick Kendall. Kendall was a member of Bryan’s staff as he was hired to lead the JV football team they planned to build in years to come.
“He’ll be a candidate for the (varsity) position,” Pearce said. “He let me know that he was interested in the position. … When we start interviewing for the position, he is definitely a candidate we will consider.”
The Crusaders will compete in the ultra-competitive Trans Valley League for football next season as they did not change leagues for football during realignment.
