PALMER — Jamie Mayo’s tenure as the head coach of the Colony High School football program may be finished, but the longtime football mentor is positive his coaching career is far from over.

“I intend to come back and coach,” Mayo said Thursday, just days after officially stepping down as Colony’s head coach.

Mayo, who has spent the last 16 years on the Colony sideline, submitted his letter of resignation on Monday, citing the conflict of time commitments as the reason he was forced to make what he called a very hard decision.

Jamie Mayo announced earlier this week he is stepping down as head coach of the Colony football program. On Thursday, Mayo cited conflicts with time commitments as the reason for his resignation, and said he intends to continue coaching in some capacity. ROBERT DeBERRY/ Frontiersman file photo

After serving as an assistant and defensive coordinator for 11 seasons, Mayo was promoted in 2005. At that point, Mayo was confident he could man the position for a decade.

But then things changed at his day job at McLaughlin Youth Center in Anchorage.

Two years later, Mayo received another promotion, this time at McLaughlin. Since, it’s been a veritable juggling act of responsibility.

“This thought has actually been going through my head for roughly the last two years,” Mayo said. “I had a hard time. One day, I’d say I don’t have the time, I can’t do what I need to do. And the next, something would happen and everything would be great, and I’d say I can do this and keep going.”

In the last year, Mayo said he changed his mind five or six times. But in the end, Mayo said he felt serving as a head coach at Colony High and working full-time in Anchorage became too much to balance.

“The way I like to do this is completely. I haven’t been able to do that for the last three years,” Mayo said. “I felt, in order for this team to continue to move forward, it’s best now that I step down.”

Mayo said he believes the head coach of a prep football program needs to also work within the school.

“I had a great group of assistant coaches who kept me up to date on everything that’s going on,” Mayo said. “But the bottom line is, there are things I have not been able to be a part of because I’m here in town at work.”

Colony High School Activities Director Mike Boyd said he knew Mayo had kicked around the idea of stepping down because of the conflict of time commitments, but was still a bit surprised when Mayo made it official.

“I could tell it was a very tough decision for him,” Boyd said. “But I really think he had to do it.”

Boyd called Mayo a Colony football staple and a man who helped bring stability to the program. He also praised Mayo’s reputation as a defensive coach.

“He’s certainly Mr. Defense,” Boyd said. “He’s got a defensive mind as good as anybody in the state, good as anybody in a lot of places.”

Boyd said no strict timetable has been set for naming Mayo’s successor, but hopes to peg a replacement by the end of the calendar year.

“It’s not something we just want to rush into,” Boyd said. “But coaching football in Alaska, you do it year-round.”

In all of its sports, Colony High School has a reputation of hiring a new head coach from within, and Mayo said there are a number of Colony football assistants worthy of a promotion.

“There’s probably a list of eight different guys,” Mayo said.

Mayo certainly sees himself on the sideline when Alaska teams officially kick the 2010 season off in August, and he hopes he’s back with the Knights in a different capacity.

When a replacement is named, Mayo said he intends to call the new coach and offer his services.

“I enjoy working with those kids, and we have a great bunch of kids coming back,” Mayo said.

Mayo said he hopes there is still a spot for him on staff, but if not, he could have opportunity elsewhere. Since news of his resignation began to spread, Mayo said he has already received offers to coach from three other programs.

“I really hope it does work (at Colony), but for whatever reason if it didn’t work at Colony, wherever I would go would have to be the right situation for me,” Mayo said.

Mayo has also served as Colony’s head baseball coach for the last 16 years and will remain in that position. Mayo said the time commitments needed to be successful in football and baseball are very different, and it’s much easier to balance his full-time position with McLaughlin with his baseball duties.

“In football, there’s 100-plus kids on the team and 13 coaches, in baseball there’s 20-32 kids and two other coaches,” Mayo said. “The game preparation for baseball is just not what it is for football.”

Mayo praised his employers at McLaughlin for flexibility when it came to his coaching duties.

“I’ve been very lucky here,” Mayo said. “They’ve been very accommodating.”

Mayo said virtually all of his annual vacation time has been spent coaching. He takes vacation during the first two weeks of the football season when the Knights schedule two-a-day practices. He takes off another week for the All-Alaska Football Camp, an event hosted by Colony. He takes off another week when Colony makes its annual trip to the Linfield College football camp in Oregon. But Mayo said, that’s exactly how he wanted to spend his free time.

Mayo said he’s also been fortunate to have his family around his programs.

Mayo said he’s had the chance to coach his two oldest sons, ages 31 and 32. His daughter was a member of the Colony cheerleading program. His youngest son, J.D., capped his four-year football career in the fall and will play baseball at Colony in the spring.

His wife also works at Colony High.

“It’s not like I’ve been away,” Mayo said. “They’ve been with me one way or another.”

This season marked 30 years of coaching for Mayo, who graduated from Service High School in Anchorage and later played college football and baseball at Linfield.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.