Coaching with purpose

The chance to teach at a summer sports camp when he was in high school lit a fire under Greg Mallory. It was in those moments that he developed a desire to coach.

“I was a part of a summer camp with Coach Gary Sanchez and it was amazing,” Mallory said. “It was like a two- or three-week summer camp where kids were coming and you were helping them with different sports. It was awesome.”

Mallory shared a special link with a nine-year-old athlete named Dominic that changed him.

“Lord knows where he's at now. I know he's doing good,” Mallory said of Dominic. “I pray he's doing good. There was just nobody else who could talk to him. Dom had this fiery attitude, and I was always able to connect with him. After that camp ended, I was telling Coach Gary Sanchez, ‘I want to be like you.’ I've been surrounded by the greatest coaches you can name, just great human beings.”

The first of those coaches for whom he played was his mom.

“I'll be honest, my mom was my first coach, and Ms. Rhonda,” he said. “When we lived in Chicago at Fort Sheridan Military Base, she was our soccer coach, and we just always had fun because those ladies didn't know the game like that. I mean, Ms. Rhonda knew it a little bit, but it's crazy to think, my mom being a coach.”

Now life has brought Mallory right where he always wanted to be. The current head track and field coach at Organ Mountain High School will add head football coach to his resume. It’s a full schedule, but he’s doing what he loves.

Mallory grew up in a military family in Albuquerque. He attended Emerson Elementary and Temple Baptist Academy, playing basketball and football. His high school sports career was at Highland High School.

“I started my sophomore year,” Mallory said. “I graduated in 2007 and my senior year was probably the best year I've ever had. That was the year that Gary Sanchez took over also as the head football coach, and he was also the head track coach.”

That double duty provides the example for the role Mallory is looking to fill right now. He was greatly influenced by Sanchez.

“I told him, ‘Coach, when I grow up, I seriously want to be just like you.’ He just told me, ‘You’ve got a dream, you’ve just got to work for it, you’ve got to go out there and live it and be passionate about what your dream is and always understand people are going to love you, support you, believe in you, but you have to believe in yourself.’”

Mallory bounced around a little after high school. He originally saw himself playing college football but eventually focused on his education at New Mexico State University, where he found his niche.

“That was journalism, where you write the story,” he said. “I graduated in 2013 with my bachelor's in journalism and mass communications, and then in 2016 with a master's in criminal justice.”

After all of that, a friend introduced him to teaching. The friend was Michael Ogas, currently an assistant principal at Organ Mountain. Mallory ended up teaching in Las Cruces.

“In 2018, that's when I got to the castle,” Mallory said. “It was still Onate at that time. I was teaching a health career class and began his coaching career as the freshman defensive coordinator.”

When he was in college, Mallory was doing some work on campus at KRWG News. He saw his future at ESPN and studied criminal justice so he could cover the legal side of sports. Eight years later, here we are.

Mallory has been blessed with some great coaching mentors. Because of their influence, he considers himself a shared-leadership coach. Darrell Jordan was the defensive coordinator when Mallory first arrived at Organ Mountain. Most recently, he learned under the leadership of former national championship coach Kenny Sanchez, the coach he now succeeds with the Knights.

“You're always learning different aspects of the game,” Mallory said. “The coaches that I already have on staff are just amazing when it comes to offense so I'm super excited just to continue to learn that piece of it, too.”

In following Sanchez, Mallory feels this is an ideal time for the transition. He says Sanchez always lifted him up and spoke highly of him, in addition to helping him understand schemes and other aspects of the game.

“I always know Coach Sanchez supported me moving forward and it was awesome,” he said. “It was awesome to get to work for him but I'm just super excited to get to show what I know. The first couple of times, before they hired Castillo and before they hired Sanchez, it (becoming the head coach) was a possibility. I knew I wasn’t ready for that, but I knew this time around, as they say, the third time's a charm.

“Being a part of this program as long as I've been a part of it and just having the support from the community and former players and admin, I felt like it was the right time. I know a lot of people are freaking out, ‘You’re the head track coach. You do this. You do that.’ I tell all the people, ‘I do nothing.’

“God provides all of my strength in everything that I move forward and do so at the end of the day, I just knew the time was now. I’m just so excited for this opportunity.”

Mallory pours himself fully into everything he does, including his coaching. That’s what he believes drives his success. He still has his responsibilities teaching media classes to fit into the daily routine.

“When I'm doing something, I'm so passionate about it,” he said. “I'm an energy guy. Some of my colleagues would tell you, he's so loud. And they love it because they feel it.”

The coach believes another key to getting the job done is humility.

“I think another big piece of it is zero ego,” Mallory said. “When I'm coming into this as a head coach, I tell them the head coach is just a title.”

Mallory loves Las Cruces and the Organ Mountain community. Those relationships are critical to his coaching philosophy. He knows he is the face of the football program.

“I feel like as a head coach, you have to connect with your community,” he said. “You have to connect with the culture of your school. You should be able to connect with the students and that's one thing I feel like I've been doing since I've been here in the last seven years. One of my slogans is, ‘Connection over curriculum.’”

Mallory has some work to do in rebuilding the Knights football program. He needs to change the culture and expand the roster.

“Number one, you have to believe,” Mallory said. “I want people to be here that believe. I think at the end of the day, when you get these young people to believe in themselves and you get them to start thinking differently about who they are and what they can do, you just sit back and get to watch what happens.”

The coach says it’s very hard to run a program when you have only a freshman team and a varsity team, and he feels not having enough players to field a JV team has been an Achilles’ heel of the program.

“I learned from the great coach David Nunez that they are not going to come to me. They are not beating down my door,” he said. “You have to chase them down, just being out there, being a face in the hallway, talking to kids and suggesting they give it a try. You never know what it's really like.”

Mallory is excited for the challenge, and he enjoys being out in the hallways with his message.

“Change is here and we want you to be a part of it.”

“I'm just super excited to start,” Mallory said. “I want the coaches to believe, and I want the community to believe, because I believe.”

Coach Mallory knows his performance will be measured by the results on the gridiron, but he sees his job as a calling to do something more for the young people he coaches.

“I want them, number one, to leave here with self-identity, knowing who they are at the end of the day and speaking positively about themselves,” Mallory said. “That's one thing you hear so many so often. I'm slow. I'm this. I tell kids all the time, ‘No, you're not.’ You are who you tell yourself you are.”

Mallory especially enjoys seeing students he’s taught and coached through the years when they come back around. He celebrates their success with them.

“It’s not about the Xs and Os because those are going to come, and whether they come or not, people are going to say what they want to say,” he said. “But when I see these young men in the community and they're coming up to me and they're showing me their families and they're all successful, they all have a great job, they're all in college. That's what I want for these kids.”