Jay Minyard describes the six years he spent teaching and coaching in Albany more than two decades ago at the beginning of his career as “probably the fondest memories that I’ve had since I’ve been in education.”
The relationships and friendships Minyard developed in his previous time at South Albany, which included three seasons as the school’s varsity head coach, were long-lasting.
All of the above made the athletic director opening at South Albany High School, along with the desire to change gears in education, an ideal time to return to town.
Minyard will be South’s next AD after a 30-year coaching career, which includes a successful run the past 11 seasons as varsity football coach at Sprague High School in Salem.
“I thought I kind of needed a change,” said Minyard, who has been teaching physical education classes across the past 25 years spent at South Albany, North Salem, McKay and Sprague. “When the opportunity came up at South Albany, where I’ve got a lot of connections and know the area and I live in the community, I thought it would be a nice change of pace.”
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Jay Minyard South Albany’s football coach for three seasons ending in 2000, is returning as the school’s athletic director.
Minyard got married about five years ago. He and his wife, Courtney, also a teacher, decided they wanted their stepson to go to school in Albany and made the move from Salem. Having loved the Albany community when living there before, they believed it was the perfect place to be.
Minyard grew up in Dallas, graduated from Dallas High School and went on to play football at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, where he achieved undergraduate and master’s degrees.
Minyard held various school jobs for three years in Albany before becoming South Albany’s football coach entering the 1998 season.
He did a lot of substitute teaching and coached throughout that initial three-year stretch. At one point, he taught sixth-grade keyboarding at Memorial Middle School for half the day and spent the rest of his time as a campus monitor at South Albany.
After being doused with a sports drink by his players, coach Jay Minyard looks on during the final seconds of South Albany’s football win against McNary in 2000. Minyard is returning to South as the school’s athletic director.
As head coach, Minyard led South to a combined 22-13 record and the program’s first state playoff win in 1999. He was working on his master’s while teaching and coaching at the school.
He made the move to North Salem after the 2000, taking with him several staff members to join his new program.
“I thought maybe bigger was better. You don’t know that when you’re young and a little naïve,” Minyard said.
He spent three years at North Salem, eight years at McKay (seven as head coach) and the last 11 at Sprague.
Jay Minyard, who willl be South Albany’s new athletic director next school year, has been a high school coach for the past 30 years.
Minyard’s teams made a total of 15 playoff appearances, all in Oregon’s highest classification at the time, with two quarterfinal berths and seven total postseason wins. He led Sprague to nine winning seasons and one of his former players there, Teagan Quitoriano, is playing in the NFL after four years at Oregon State.
But none of that tops the list of personal highlights.
“What it boils down to is the relationships that you build,” which made sending out a letter to the Sprague football family detailing his departure of the school difficult. “That’s when it kind of hit. You’ve been through 30 years of coaching and building relationships, making friendships and had so many coaches that have coached with me and coached for me … it’s been a great ride. It really has.”
That part will be hard to let go, Minyard said, but he’s ready for new challenges.
His new job is one that requires many talents and organizational skills. An athletic director has to be highly visible and present in many places and events.
Having coached under 13 different athletic directors (and 11 different principals), he’s seen what the AD position entails with good mentors who have helped him along the way. Now it’s a matter of learning on the job.
“It’s no different than the coaching world. You take the things that you love and develop them, and you take the things you would do differently and make some changes,” said Minyard, whose coaching experience also includes track and field and wrestling.
Leading the Sprague football program will be AJ Robinson, who was an assistant coach under Randy Nyquist at West Albany for four seasons and Oregon City for one before taking over as head coach at Churchill for six years through 2021.
At South Albany, he’ll take over for Bob Daugherty, who is retiring after 40 years in education, the last two as the RedHawks’ athletic director.
They connected when both were football head coaches, Daugherty at Scio and Minyard at South and were running the same offense.
“I really like Jay. I just really enjoy him. He’s a really nice man,” Daugherty said. “I know the things that keep me awake in this position, I want to alleviate for him.”
Last month, the two met at South for most of the day on a Saturday, with Daugherty giving Minyard a tour of the school and helping him get his feet wet.
“If I can help Jay I will, and next year as well,” Daugherty said. “I need to get him prepared for that first part of August and he’ll be fabulous.”
Minyard added: “I think he’s kind of going out of his way to make sure I feel comfortable and have all the tools that I’m going to need to be able to do a good job.”
Leading up to his return to South, Minyard has had fun connecting with former students and coworkers.
Among them, John Hunter, currently South’s principal, was the school’s athletic director when Minyard previously worked there. Marc Cordle, the RedHawks’ girls basketball coach, was one of Minyard’s students. Jeff Louber, a South football and track and field coach, played on the school’s football team when Minyard was defensive coordinator before taking over as head coach.
“For me it really feels almost like a homecoming. So I’m really excited about it,” Minyard said. “To be able to go back to South Albany, where it started and make those reconnections, I just don’t think it could have happened any better.”
Jesse Sowa is a sports reporter at the Albany Democrat-Herald and Corvallis Gazette-Times. You can connect with him on Twitter: @JesseSowaGT.