Ellsworth Community College has tabbed Matt White to be its new head football coach. ECC Athletic Director Nate Forsyth said White, who has a resume full of success as a head coach and assistant coach at the collegiate level, was chosen for the position from more than 60 applicants in a nationwide search.
"Coach White is the best fit for the current state of our program," Forsyth explained. "He brings energy and is a passionate and diverse recruiter after being at the four-year and junior college levels. With his highly organized culture, Matt will bring in quality student-athletes that we will be proud of in the classroom, in the community, and on the field. He will also be a valuable asset to the Iowa Falls community."
White comes to Ellsworth after four years as the defensive coordinator and director of football performance at the University of Virginia Wise, an NCAA Division II school. He coordinated defenses that broke every individual game record in school history and optimized the talent that earned the respect of opponents in the South Atlantic Conference. White also developed a comprehensive year-round strength and conditioning program for the football program.
Prior to his stint at UVA Wise, White was an assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Kentucky Christian University where he recruited over 200 student-athletes to boost the college's enrollment in his lone season there. He helped elevate one of the worst-performing defensive squads into a conference leader in several statistical categories.
White's previous head coaching experience came at Los Angeles Valley College in Valley Glen, CA, where he was also the offensive coordinator. He fielded one of the most explosive offenses in all of college football, scoring 45.8 points per game one year. At 27 years old, he was the only full-time coach employed at the school. Los Angeles Valley was the same college where White had been an assistant head coach and special teams coordinator before taking over as head coach. They went 13-0 one season and notched back-to-back bowl wins and White led a defense and special teams unit that allowed only 240 total yards and 10 points per game.
Teaching is also in White's background. He worked as an adjunct instructor in the kinesiology department at Los Angeles Valley and also taught kinesiology at UCLA, where he conducted the men's and women's rec sports strength development.
His first coaching job was at the University of Montana Tech where he was defensive line coach and the head strength coach for two years. White served as the strength and conditioning coordinator and outside linebackers coach for Dan Hawkins' IFAF world championship football team for one season of Team USA Football.
White earned a master's degree from Fort Hays State University. The new Ellsworth coach's previous experience shows that he has been involved with coaching every positional group at one time or another and has been an offensive, defensive, and special teams coordinator. White even worked at legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban's summer camp last summer, coaching the outside linebackers.