Benn named Mustangs HC

“I want to represent the community well and I am looking forward to being a part of it,” said newly hired Malta High School Football Head Coach Jim Benn.

The hiring of Benn was approved by Malta Public Schools Board on Tuesday, March 28.

“It’s a great job. I feel very, very lucky to have been offered it,” he said. “My son (Cormac) is very excited to get to know some kids.”

Though Benn has been to Malta several times as an opposing coach with Huntley and Ronan, Benn will make his first appearance as a new hire on Monday, April 17.

Benn is currently finishing his final year at Ronan High School, a school where he was the head football coach from 2008-2015. He stepped away from the game of football in 2016.

Knowing that Benn was ready to move on to the next chapter in his life, he logged into the state’s OPI website, but only for a teaching position.

“I saw that there was a Spanish and history job available,” Benn said.

Immediately Benn called Malta Middle School Principal Shawn Bleth, who he had coached a couple of Class B All-Star football games with in previous years.

Benn also met with former Mustangs Hall of Fame Coach and Malta High School Principal Scott King at the State Wrestling Meet in Billings earlier this year.

“A little bit after that the football job opened up and that sped up the process a little bit for me,” Benn said. “It was the right teaching job and the right coaching job in the right place.”

He submitted his resume and Malta Public Schools invited him out for an interview.

“I felt the interview went well and they offered me a job, so I’m a Mustang,” Benn said.

Benn is a native of Missoula, but moved to Frenchtown during seventh grade. He graduated from Frenchtown High School in 1992 after lettering in football, basketball and track.

“My dad wanted me to play for Coach Racicot,” he said. “It was a great place to grow up. A Class B town that had hard-working values. It was a good fit. I had a great experience.”

Frenchtown won divisional titles during his senior and junior seasons. Frenchtown made it to the quarterfinals in his junior season but the team lost to Cut Bank. The next season the team lost to Troy, who eventually won the state title.

He walked on to play wide receiver at Carroll College but ultimately Benn graduated from Montana State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish Education and a History Minor in 1998.

Benn has been a high school coach since he was 19 years of age. His first job as a coach was at Manhattan Middle School in which he was a basketball coach in the fall of 1993. He started coaching football for Manhattan High School in the fall of 1994 as well as middle school track. He would coach at Manhattan for five years.

He would then coach and teach at Corvallis High School for five years. He also taught and coached at Huntley Project High School for five years before accepting a position at Ronan High School, where he has worked for the past eight years.

Next year, while he works and coaches in Malta, his son Cormac will be a freshman at Malta High School.

“I wanted a good fit for him,” Benn said, “A place where he would be a part of competitive teams and Malta definitely fit the bill for the type of town I wanted. It’s what I have had pictured in my head as far as the type of town I want my kids to grow up in and the type of town that I want to coach and teach in. It was a pretty easy decision.”