The Man Behind the Coach
About Joe Kersting
For more than four decades, football gave Joe Kersting a place to teach, lead, compete, and build relationships that would last long after the games were over.
More Than a Coach
Football has been part of Joe Kersting’s life for most of his life.
He played it. Studied it. Taught it. Built teams around it. And spent decades helping young men discover what they were capable of through it.
Along the way came championship seasons, nationally ranked teams, coaching honors, and hundreds of players.
But ask a coach to look back on a lifetime in the game, and the scoreboard rarely tells the whole story.
What remains are the people.
The conversations.
The standards.
The mistakes.
The breakthroughs.
And the relationships that somehow continue decades after the final whistle.
That is the story behind Joe Kersting.
Philosophy
Football Was the Classroom
Joe’s coaching philosophy was never only about winning football games.
Football created an environment where lessons had consequences.
Preparation mattered.
Discipline mattered.
Showing up mattered.
How you responded to adversity mattered.
How you treated teammates mattered.
And doing your job when nobody was watching mattered.
Those lessons followed players beyond the field — into careers, marriages, families, leadership, and life.
The Relationships
Once a Player, Always a Player
One of the most meaningful parts of Joe’s story is that many of the relationships did not end when the season did.
Years became decades.
Former players built lives of their own.
Yet the connection remained.
Today, Joe stays in touch with hundreds of people — former players, coaching colleagues, friends, family, and even the sons of men he once coached.
Those relationships are what eventually inspired this project.
Photo
Joe With Former Players
Why This Site Exists
Lessons Beyond the Game
Retirement may have changed the way Coach Kersting communicates with his players.
It didn’t end the coaching.
Today, Joe writes two or more messages each week to former players, colleagues, friends, and family — thoughts about leadership, discipline, family, adversity, gratitude, responsibility, relationships, and life.
They aren’t game plans.
They aren’t scouting reports.
They’re simply lessons from a coach who still has something to say to the people whose lives have crossed paths with his.
That idea became:
Lessons Beyond the Game
The field may be behind them.
The relationship isn’t.
Today
The Next Chapter
Joe is retired from full-time coaching and divides his time between Glendale and Prescott, Arizona, with the game still close at hand.
He follows the sport, keeps up with coaching friends, and hears regularly from the people who have been part of his life and coaching journey.
The role simply evolved. Instead of coaching a team every day, he mentors, writes, encourages, and stays connected with people whose lives intersected with his.
Same coach. Different season.
The Career
More Than Four Decades on the Sideline
Joe’s coaching career took him from high school football to Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, Glendale Community College, Arizona Christian University, and other programs across Arizona.
His years at Glendale produced championship teams, national recognition, and some of the defining moments of his career.
But that story deserves a page of its own.