Bio

Tom Minnick enters his fourth season as Head Football Coach. 

He came to Garden City after a dominant, 11-year stretch at Arizona Western, leaving the school as the all-time winningest coach-surpassing Ray Butcher during the 2015 season. He currently has the third highest winning percentage among active coaches in the NJCAA. 

Minnick is the only coach in Arizona Western History history to lead the team to multiple NJCAA Football Championship Games (2011, 2016, 2017). He is also the only coach in AWC history to lead the Matadors to nine straight bowl appearances (2009 Mississippi Bowl, 2010 C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl, 2011-2016 El Toro Bowl, 2017 Mississippi Bowl), to win back-to-back-to-back conference titles (2009-11, 2016-17) and to win a WSFL Championship. His teams have finished in the NJCAA Top 20 in eight of his 10 seasons.

Minnick coached the first Matador player to receive the highest honor from the NJCAA, the David Rowlands Male Student-Athlete of the Year, which Patrick Macon won in 2017. He has coached an NJCAA Offensive Player of the Year (Reggie Bullock in 2010) and NJCAA Defensive Player of the Year (Macon in 2016) and multiple league and/or region Players of the Year (Bullock, 2010; Damien Williams WSFL/ACCAC Offensive POY in 2011; Chris Young WSFL/ACCAC Defensive POY in 2011; Tanner McEvoy ACCAC Offensive POY in 2012; Paul Magloire ACCAC Defensive POY in 2014; Darrell Monroe ACCAC Offensive POY in 2014 and 2015, Patrick, Macon WSFL Co-Defensive POY in 2016, Greg Bell III WSFL Offensive POY in 2017). Plus, he has been named the WSFL Coach of the Year six times. The Mats have had 33 NJCAA All-Americans under Coach Minnick after adding five names to the list last fall.

Minnick arrived in Yuma in 2008, completely resurrecting the Matador program. Before Arizona Western, he was the Head Coach at Joliet Junior College just outside of Chicago, Illinois, where he restored that program to national prominence in his two years with 17 overall wins (including a 10-win season in 2007), back-to-back Midwest Football Conference East Division titles and two appearances in the Graphic Edge Printing Bowl (and winning it in ‘07); and a #10 ranking in the final ‘07 NJCAA Football Poll-their highest national ranking in 5 years.

Minnick’s two head coaching years at Joliet succeeded an extremely successful career as a longtime assistant to his mentor, NJCAA Hall of Fame Coach Bob MacDougall. Minnick was MacDougall’s starting quarterback at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois in 1986, his assistant at DuPage from 1990 until 1996 (helping lead them to bowl appearances all seven years and four bowl wins), and finally his assistant at Joliet from 2000 until MacDougall’s retirement in ’06, where they won 2 national championships '01 (as NJCAA Non-Scholarship Champs) & ’02 (overall champs), put together a 21-game winning streak over 2 years, and won two bowl games. Minnick has a Bachelor’s Degree in Business at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Minnick and his wife, Tiffany, have two daughters, Payton and Morgan.