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News News | Aug 7, 2023

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It took about 15 years, but Jacob Ashworth finally found his way back to the Roaring Fork Valley. A one-time liftie at Buttermilk Ski Area, the Louisiana native was recently hired as Basalt High School’s new athletic director and gets to dive right in with fall practice getting underway Monday across the state.

Ashworth, 36, replaces Jason Santo, who came to BHS as the AD back in 2019. Santo recently moved over to Basalt Middle School to become the assistant principal.

“I’m very fortunate to be in this position,” Ashworth said Saturday after about three weeks on the job. “Wins and losses are not at the forefront right now. It’s instilling character, accountability. To me, as long as I instill that into my coaches and we continue to shape student-athletes in that direction of where we want to go, the wins and losses will take care of themselves.”

Ashworth is from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and has a recent history of coaching track and cross country. A 2005 high school graduate, he only lasted about three semesters at Louisiana Monroe — where he had a track and field scholarship — before deciding it wasn’t the right time for him to be in college. That’s when he relocated to the Roaring Fork Valley and spent the 2007-08 ski season as a chairlift operator at Buttermilk.

Despite his upbringing in the South, ski vacations had been a yearly adventure for Ashworth, who is a passionate snowboarder after picking up the sport as a teenager.

“I really fell in love with the area,” he said. “I remember trying to convince my parents to move out here to the mountains. Just always wanted to be in the mountains. Around 13 or 14 I started snowboarding and never looked back.”

After his winter as a liftie, Ashworth decided “it was time to figure out life” and joined the U.S. Army. He spent five years on active duty and another seven in the reserves before being pulled full-time into coaching.

A multi-sport athlete in high school, Ashworth latched onto track and field as an adult, where he helped start a youth club program before becoming the first cross country coach at Central Carolina Community College. He even briefly spent time as a volunteer assistant coach for George Williams, the longtime track coach at St. Augustine’s University who was the head coach for the U.S. Olympic track team for the 2004 Athens Games.

In that time, Ashworth also returned to school, earning his bachelor’s degree in sport management from North Carolina State and eventually his MBA from Syracuse.

In the end, it was the health of one of his sons, who is on the autism spectrum, that led to the decision for the family to relocate to the Roaring Fork Valley.

“We came across a couple of difficult decisions we had to make regarding my son’s education and ultimately decided that the state of Louisiana did not have enough resources to offer him,” Ashworth said. “We started looking elsewhere and this state just has far more resources, and this valley in particular, with Ascendigo, Challenge Aspen. There are just so many more opportunities for him here. … That was kind of the driving force behind why we decided to pursue to move here.”

He didn’t move here for the BHS job and feels lucky it came open when it did. His wife, who also has a background in coaching cheerleading and helped run the track clubs they started, is a teacher at Glenwood Springs Elementary School.

Between his passion for the mountains and his desire to provide positive opportunities for his children, Ashworth intends to settle in for the long haul at Basalt High School. Among his first tasks will be to address the thin rosters often created by having myriad sports options in this valley, as well as the need to further develop youth programs in the area that can provide feeders for the high schools.

Ashworth does not plan to step into any coaching roles right away, saying being able to go on a run with the cross country team or throw the ball around with some of the football players during practice will fill that desire, for now. But it could be something he allows himself to get pulled back into down the line.

“I do plan to be the athletic director when my kids come through Basalt High School. They are in kindergarten and first grade now,” he said. “I want to make sure by the time they get there, we’ve got clear direction of where we want to go with the programs. I got my military background, so I harp on being on time — and on time is early — and I expect everyone to take accountability for their own actions. We are one team, and that starts with me. My ultimate goal is to prepare the student-athletes to go out into the world and be successful members of society.”

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