By Griffin Winter ’21

THE ROUNDUP

Mr. Joshua Garcia ’07, current head baseball coach, was named as the new Athletic Director starting with the 2020-2021 school year. 

This has not been the typical year for the new Athletic Director. COVID-19 has hampered the sports world in numerous ways. 

“There are no smooth days with COVID, especially with football,” Mr. Garcia said. “The biggest challenge as an AD is not having answers for your coaches right now because of COVID.” 

Head Football Coach Mr. Jason Jewel went on to sing Mr. Garcia’s praises in his COVID-19 response.

“It helps having another head coach who’s around and gets it,” Jewel said.

Mr. Garcia sees COVID-19 as a new challenge.

“I was talking to the other ADs and they were telling me that this year has been so hard, but I don’t know anything different. This is what an Athletic Director is,” Mr. Garcia said. “I love being the calm when things are chaotic.” 

Mr. Garcia wants to emphasize an ideology he’s had with his baseball team since he arrived back on Brophy’s campus in 2017 with the rest of the sports department. 

“The most important thing to me is culture, and what that culture produces. We need to build leaders. We want these kids to go off and be a leader on their college campuses,” Mr. Garcia said. 

His culture has extended to one of his athletes in the form of Brophy student Matthew Tanner ’21.

 “Not only was he my coach but he was a mentor and somebody I can look up to on Brophy’s campus,” Tanner said.

Mr. Garcia called this job a “dream job” but it does have one downside. 
“The sad part about this change is that I don’t know any of the freshmen because I’m not a religious studies teacher anymore,” Mr. Garcia said. “I don’t have the opportunity to get to know those kids.”