Northwest Mississippi Community College Rangers

Jake Gordon enters his fourth year as the Director of Athletics for Northwest Mississippi Community College in the 2025-26 academic year.

In his three full years of leadership, Gordon has overseen the growth of the Northwest athletic program, helping bring back men's golf and be one of three Mississippi JUCOs to start a women's golf program. The two sports just completed their first full season with the women’s golf team making a trip to the NJCAA Division II National Tournament in Boone, IA.

The Northwest women’s soccer team won the NJCAA Division II National Championship in Huntsville, AL, along with the MACCC and Region 23 championships in fall 2024. This was the third consecutive trip to the national tournament for women’s soccer.

The Northwest softball team was selected to play in the NJCAA Division II Softball World Series for just the second time in the program's history following the spring 2025 season, finishing among the top eight teams in the country.

Meanwhile, the Rangers have thrived across the board during Gordon's tenure. The Northwest football team reached the NJCAA Semifinals for the second time in three years, while the men's and women's tennis teams both made their respective NJCAA Division I tournaments in 2024-25. 

One of Gordon's first hires at Northwest, rodeo coach Will Lummus, has raised the bar of success for the Ranger rodeo program. After sending Colby Burgess to the College National Finals Rodeo in 2023, the Northwest men's rodeo team had five athletes compete in the CNFR during the summer of 2024. Four athletes qualified for the CNFR in 2025-Christian Cagle and Will Collier in steer wrestling and Dakota Smith and Luke Stanley in Bull Riding. 

Additionally, Gordon was also responsible for hiring an entirely new women's basketball coaching staff, led by head coach and 2023 Northwest Sports Hall of Fame inductee LaTaryl Williams. In his third season, Williams guided his squad to the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament for the second year in a row. Baseball also qualified for the Region 23 Tournament following the spring season in 2025.

Gordon has made it a point to highlight the Rangers' success in the classroom as well, establishing the inaugural Athletic Director's Honor Roll for the 2022-23 academic year. He also appointed Charlesy Kennedy to the role of athletic academic advisor, while establishing Tori Fugatt's role as football academic advisor. Together, the duo helped 194 student-athletes earn recognition to the Fall 2024 Athletic Director's Honor Roll. Northwest also had three teams (football, baseball, volleyball) earn MACCC All-Academic Team of the Year recognition, while the Ranger football program garnered NJCAA All-Academic Team of the Year honors following the 2023-24 academic year.

Gordon also represents Northwest on the national level by serving on both the NJCAA DII Baseball and NJCAA DII Men's Golf Committees.

Gordon came to Northwest in July 2022 from Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, where he spent three seasons as the assistant athletic director for the Buccaneers. While at Blinn, he was in charge of eligibility of all student-athletes, gameday operations and live streaming all home games on the college's YouTube channel.

Gordon has nine years of experience at the NJCAA level, previously serving two seasons as the assistant athletic director at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio. While at Lakeland, he assisted with the day-to-day operations of the athletic department, eligibility and the Athletic and Fitness Center. Gordon was also in charge of athletic communications, administered the website, promoted the College's seven NJCAA Division II sports programs, administered an academic tracking system for student-athletes, oversaw the academic retention program for student athletes and held event management duties.

Prior to his tenure at Lakeland, Gordon also had an earlier stint at Blinn College as the communication and sports information specialist for three seasons. Gordon was instrumental in providing coverage to the media on the Buccaneers' national championship volleyball program in 2014, four national titles in cheer and dance and three national tournament appearances for volleyball, softball and women's basketball.

Gordon worked at various newspapers in Utah prior to his arrival at Blinn, including the Salt Lake Tribune, Tooele Transcript-Bulletin, Deseret News and The Vernal Express. While at The Vernal Express, he served as the sports editor, covering high school and local sports for Uintah County, designing sports pages and maintaining the sports section of the website.

Gordon is a native of Tooele, Utah and received his bachelor's degree in mass communication from the University of Utah and Master of Business Administration in sports administration from Saint Leo University. He and his wife, Tiffany, have two children, Lucy and Andrew.