Jesse Mitchell, a member of the Tescier family, is having what you might call a banner year after being named coach of the year, watching his Lady Falcons soccer team take a Valley Championship, and being inducted into his high school’s Hall of Fame.
Mitchell, a special education teacher and soccer coach, started off his athletic career playing as a middle infielder, receiving all CIF honors for his high school baseball team, then later as the captain of his Glendale Community College baseball team, where he was named All Western State Conference and played in the college All Star game. He also played at the University of San Diego until an injury took him off the field in 1999.
Now the coach of a soccer team, he said it was his daughter who prompted that decision.
“She really didn’t like softball at all. I was following in my dad’s footsteps and always wanted to coach my kid, and she loved soccer,” he said.
He was familiar with the game, having watched his sister play soccer at Cal State Northridge, but not extremely knowledgeable about it. Coaching his daughter led him to coach club soccer and soccer at Independence High School in Bakersfield, California.
After eighteen years of coaching youth soccer and the last five years with the varsity high school team, he was excited to have his team win the Valley Championship in 2024. The team has won the league multiple times, but it’s only the second time in school history (the first being six years ago) that they’ve won the championship.
The Bakersfield Californian chose Mitchell as their Coach of the Year and most of his starting lineup was selected with All Area honors. The team also won the PEAKK award for a “Tradition of Excellence.”
“It’s probably one of the top three awards out of 40 throughout the high school district, and it was because we were successful for multiple years, had a winning record, and have done all the right things,” Mitchell said. “So that was pretty cool to get as well.”
Mitchell also teaches special education, co-teaches Biology, and teaches Transition and Independent Studies classes.
“It is a lot of work, but it is rewarding,” he said. “There’s a reason why I was put in this place to impact kids and the community.”
He has been teaching for nine years now. He’d previously worked in pharmaceutical sales, and while he said that work was more profitable, teaching is his calling.
This year, he was also honored to be inducted into the Crescenta Valley High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
The school, located in the Los Angeles area near the Rose Bowl, is where Mitchell first got his start on the baseball diamond. He said their Hall of Fame is “more of a mission statement” and honors alumni who excelled in multiple areas, from athletics to academics to contributions in the community they live in.
“He’s just had a wonderful 2024,” his father, Jack Mitchell, and his mother, Gwen Mitchell, said. “He just keeps going forward and has become very successful as a teacher, educator, and then working with the youth programs in soccer. Those kinds of people don’t come along every day. He seems to grab everything by the horns and keep going, and he’s very successful not only in his work but in his play.”