Matt Ortega To Make History As Pa’s First Minority Big 33 Head Coach, Promises ‘Many More’ To Come
Written by: Brian Linder on May 23, 2025. Photo courtesy PennLive
Matt Ortega grew up in Steelton, the son of a man who loved football, and taking in the Big 33 game became a family tradition early on.
That fostered a dream that will come true for Ortega at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Cumberland Valley High School when he coaches Pennsylvania’s team against Maryland in the game. It will also mark the first time in the near-70-year history of the Big 33 that the Keystone State has had a minority head coach.
But, for as special as the moment will be for him, Ortega has told his family not to be there. He has instead directed them to head toward Boston to Gilette Stadium where one of his sons, Tommy Ortega, and the University of Tampa will play Adelphi in the Division II lacrosse National Championship.
“He said, ‘You guys supported me my entire career,'” Central Connecticut State receiver Ricky Ortega, another of Ortega’s sons, told PennLive. “He wants the family going to Gilette Stadium to watch Tommy play for a national championship.
“You know, this was a life goal for him, and him telling the whole family to go to Gilette … I think that just speaks volumes about who he is.”
Talk to folks about Ortega, who is heading into his 17th season as the head coach at Coatesville High School, and there is a consistent message.
Great father. Great coach. Great person.
The right man to make history for Pennsylvania.
“I’m proud to be on the staff with him,” Susquehanna Township’s Joe Headen said. “It’s a great moment for the PFSCA and the Big 33.”
BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Ortega’s grandfather came to Steelton to work at the steel mill, and his uncles went to work there, too.
“That’s how my family got embedded in Steelton,” Ortega said.
But steel was not the only thing that captured Richard Ortega’s attention. Football caught his eye and became a passion.
“My father was a football star at Central Dauphin high School way back in the late 1960s,” Matt Ortega said. “At that time, being Hispanic and playing football was very, very rare. He was probably the only one in central Pennsylvania, and (football) became such a huge part of our family.”
Ortega can close his eyes and conjure up memories of tagging along behind Richard out to the stadium in Hershey to watch the Big 33 when he was just 5 or so.
“We used to even shorten vacations to make sure we can get home and watch the game,” he said. “It was a very special thing.”
Richard’s love for football rubbed off on Matt, and when he talks about that and his father, you can tell how much he appreciates it.
Ortega, 50, is well-schooled on the history of central Pa. football so when he goes down memory lane he talks about legends like coach George Chaump and former Harrisburg quarterback Jimmy Jones.
He suited up for Steel-High in high school for a couple seasons and then finished things at Central Dauphin. He went on to play collegiately at Saint Francis and spent a short time there at a running backs coach when his playing days were over. Ortega than had a stop at McCaskey as an assitant and helped get that program going before heading to Harrisburg where he worked for Chaump as a defensive coordinator. There was a five-year stop at York, and his current long run at Coatesville.
“It’s been an unbelievable ride,” Ortega said. “We played here years ago, and I remember calling my wife and telling her (Coatesville) would be a dream school. I thought it was a really big longshot, but I came here and they took a chance on me. We’ve won an average of 10 games for the last 16 years.”
ORTEGA’S PROGRAM AND COMMUNITY
Matt Ortega Jr. is the youngest of three sons and he is the current quarterback at Coatesville.
Ricky was a star quarterback there, and a Big 33 pick during the year that COVID cancelled the game, under his father, too. And Tommy was a star athlete as well.
“He is definitely our rock,” Ricky Ortega said. “He taught us everything. We were highly competitive kids, always pushing each other to be the best. But watching him compete and work hard and go through all his trials and tribulations … there was a whole bunch of adversity, and he just taught us how to fight through it and trust and believe in God and ourselves.
“He is just an awesome dad,” he continued. “And he did a really good job of separating football and being home. He wasn’t even my offensive coordinator in high school. He didn’t overcoach me. That’s just how he is, and I think if you look at the community, I think he has always done what is best for the Coatesville community.”
That is a message that was echoed by former Coatesville star running back Aaron Young. Young played collegiately at Rutgers and Old Dominion and just wrapped up a rookie minicamp audition with the Denver Broncos.
“Growing up, we had a close relationship,” Young said. “Me and Ricky, we lived in the same neighborhood, and (Matt) was just a very community driven guy.”
Young said Ortega has a knack for making young players believe in themselves.
“Playing in the backyard with Ricky and other kids, he would say stuff like, ‘I can see you being a running back in the future,'” he said. “That was one of the biggest things he had going for him, and his ability to coach and not just … some coaches just yell, yell, yell, but he actually taught a lot. You could tell what kind of character he had.”
The results speak for themselves.
Coatesville is consistently competitive and has become a consistent producer of top-notch talent with a roster that currently includes linebacker Terry Wiggins, a Penn State commit, and offensive lineman Maxwell Hiller, who is one of the most coveted big men in the country.
“I have had a chance or two to move on and possibly coach in college,” Ortega said. “But I wouldn’t change this for the world.”
MAKING HISTORY
PennLive first reported that Pennsylvania had not had a minority Big 33 coach in its history back in 2022.
“It was one of those things where when that article came out, you are like ‘Oh my gosh you’re right,'” Ortega said. “We never thought about it that way.”
When Ortega says “we” he is referring to the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association. He has been a member, getting in early as one of the few minority coaches, for around 15 years.
“When I first got there, it was me, and a coach from the Philadelphia public league, and he was the only other minority in the PFSCA,” Ortega said. “And then (Joe) Headen came on and (Steel-High’s Andrew Erby) came on, and Andrew Moore came on, and Troy Gore came on, and coach Rick Prete came on.”
PSFCA Executive Director Garry Cathell explained back in 2022 that there were a series of boxes a coach had to be able to check to be considered to be a head coach in the game. Cathell said to lead a Big 33 team, a coach must be a member of the PSFCA, have served as an assistant in the East-West game, have served as an assistant in the Big 33 and be nominated and then ultimately picked by the PSFCA’s selection committee.
An issue, he said at the time, was a lack of minority head coaches in the state.
“You have 560 schools in Pennsylvania, and my guess is that maybe 10 percent of those schools have a minority coach in them,” he said in 2022. “That is not a fact. It’s just a guesstimate of numbers.
“To be specific, we have 566 schools here in Pennsylvania that have a football program,” Cathell added. “So, you would guess that about 60 of them would be minorities, and not all of them would be in the association. That leaves a real small percentage to choose from.”
But to Cathell’s credit, and to the credit of Ortega, Headen and Erby, too, they formed the PFSCA Minority Coaches Association in early 2023 with an eye on upping minority membership and looking at the lack of minority coaches in Pennsylvania. The ball was rolling toward making sure that talented minority coaches are eligible in the future, and also toward making history with the selection of Ortega to coach this year’s team.
“It was definitely needed, and it is exciting times for us to be trailblazers in terms of getting recognition for minority coaches in Pa.,” Ortega said.
He said this is happening at a good time, too, with the schools in Philadelphia getting “stronger and stronger.”
“I think it was one of those things where it was never done on purpose,” Ortega said of minority coaches not getting an opportunity. “There was a certain way we did things, and they didn’t have representation at that point and time. The number of minority coaches in Pa. was very low. But with this whole resurgence, it has changed 100 percent in terms of coaches with color.
“My hats off to those guys,” he said of the association. “They saw a need for it, and it was just time. It’s just very special to be the first one. It was special to me, and it was special knowing that in the next 10 years, there are going to be multiple minority coaches and that is the most exciting piece. Twenty years ago, there was a small number, but now there are so many guys who are Big 33 material.
“There are going to be many more guys to come.”
