Building Character and Competitiveness

Coach Jason Negro, MCAA ’21, one of the most successful high school football coaches in the country, was named Concordia’s Professional Achievement alumni award recipient for 2024.

“I was proud to be able to go through the program,” Coach Negro says of his experience in Concordia’s Masters of Coaching and Athletics Administration program and becoming a Golden Eagles alumnus.

Since 2010, Coach Negro has led St. John Bosco Catholic all-boys school football team to two national championships and launched multiple players into the National Football League and other successful careers.

“No way did I ever think we could do what we’re currently doing,” he says, referring to the football team's meteoric rise. “But what I’m most proud of is that fourteen years later, our program still has room to grow and our best days are still ahead of us.”

Coach Negro was raised in Bellflower, where his mother still lives in same house he grew up in. He and his brothers enrolled at St. John Bosco in the 1980s, and he became a four-year athlete — “better as a baseball player” than as a football player, he says. But after graduating from college and becoming a math teacher, coaching football emerged as his passion.

“It’s the way my brain works,” he says. “Math is a very problem-solving profession. I liked the schematics and strategy of football, the quick- paced action. Football forces you to make a decision within a 25- to 40-second time period. Every 25 to 40 seconds you have to call a play. I liked that about the game, and the statistical analysis. It fit my style.”

More than that, he believed the culture of football could build greatness into young men. He coached the Trabuco Hills High School football team for seven years while serving as a full-time math teacher there. In 2009, his alma mater failed to make the playoffs for a seventh consecutive year and called Coach Negro, hoping a coaching change would give the program a shot in the arm.

His task was daunting: the Trinity League is one of the most highly competitive in the nation, home to five well-heeled Orange County schools, while Bosco is located in a comparatively disadvantaged area.

“We were an outlier,” Coach Negro says, “but what we lack economically, we make up for in our character and our culture.”

It didn’t take long to get back on a winning track. In Coach Negro’s third year as coach, the Braves went undefeated (16-0), won a Trinity League Championship, and made a Pac 5 division semi-final appearance. They won the Open Division California State Championship Title with a 20-14 victory over annual contender De La Salle High School, and received a #1 National Ranking Title by Max Preps and USA Today. At the conclusion of the historic season, Coach Negro served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Game in San Antonio, Texas.

“Our quick turnaround surprised a lot of people,” he says.

Since then, Bosco has remained a perennial powerhouse, but Coach Negro has never felt drawn to coach at the college or even professional levels because of his strong sense of mission at the high school.

“One of the greatest reasons I haven’t gone to the college level is because the work I’m doing here is missionary work,” he says. “I think I was placed here for a purpose. I don’t think I would have as great an impact on the development of young adolescents in the collegiate level or in the professional ranks. I like working with 14-to-18-year-olds. That is my area of strength and I think I’m having a pretty big impact because I can see how well our kids are able to develop as football players and men of character, and succeeding in life beyond the game. That’s my primary purpose.”

His former players have done well in and out of sports. After the 2024 Super Bowl, Coach Negro texted congratulations to Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie, a Bosco graduate who has two Super Bowl rings in his first two years in the National Football League. Other Bosco alums who have gone pro are Wyatt Davis, who plays on the offensive line of the New York Giants, and quarterback Josh Rosen who was drafted in the top 10 by the Arizona Cardinals, and Terrel Bynum, who plays for the Los Angeles Chargers.

“I text them to say, ‘Good job,’ and now that they’re celebrities they are slower to get back to me,” Coach Negro says. “We stay really close with our players because they know we care about them as men.”

Coach Negro is just as quick to praise former players who pursue careers in law, medicine, and business.

“Our kids are thriving in all different areas,” he says. With all his coaching success, why did Coach Negro enroll in Concordia’s MCAA program in 2019?

He says he has always preached the value of lifelong learning, so when he heard that a coach on his staff had started Concordia’s MCAA program, Coach Negro made a snap decision, saying, “You know what? I’m going to do it, too.”

“I took a leap of faith, applied and once I got in, there was no looking back. I embraced the program,” he says.

While taking classes, he was also leading Bosco to its second national championship. The Braves made their record- setting seventh straight appearance at the CIF-SS Open Division Finals, defeating rival Mater Dei in a come-from- behind win to earn the CIF Championship. The team was named undisputed national champions, and Coach Negro was named Press-Telegram Dream Team Coach of the Year and CIF-SS Open Division Coach of the Year.

“It was a risky mission to start the program when I did,” he says, “but I wanted to practice what I preach. I constantly tell our kids that they need to go to college, or do post-graduate work and beyond. How can I say that when I only had a bachelor’s of science degree in mathematics? What better way for me to encourage my student-athletes to be better versions of themselves?”

He found himself taking a course from Concordia adjunct instructor Rick Curtis, who had competed against him and Bosco as the head coach at Santa Margarita for some years.

“Now I was learning from him about strategic ways to become a better leader,” Coach Negro says. “I could never replace that. There’s always room to grow and learn.” Coach Negro believes that “all great coaches are ultimately good teachers.” His primary focus, and that of St. John Bosco, remains to train young men in adolescence to be successful adults in society.

“My philosophy of coaching fits directly into the philosophy of the school: teaching morality and good decision-making,” Coach Negro says. “I have a platform on which I can do it, with the Lord being right there with me. Doing it from a Christian perspective only strengthens it.”

Ultimately, Coach Negro says the “cornerstone of our success is the human capital I surround myself with. I empower talented people to do the jobs they can do.”