Their records are on the wall. Championships they helped to win hang from the rafters of the gym. Their photos sit in display cases reserved for the past greats. Some are even immortalized in a hall of fame.
But for eight coaches at Live Oak and Sobrato, they are more than just a reminder of athletes gone by: They are coaches.
Sobrato High School cross country coach Cassandra Valenzuela still has her school records on display in the gym.
Sobrato boys golf coach David Letts was inducted into the Live Oak Hall of Fame two years ago for water polo. Fellow Sobrato coach Ronni Gautschi is due to join him for her prowess in the pool.
Gautschi’s brother Ryan earned league MVPs and helped lead Live Oak to the cusp of a Central Coast Section championship. He has since taken over for his coach, Mack Haines.
Sarah Porras, as a freshman, was central to Live Oak’s 2005 Central Coast Section championship run. She now coaches her former team as well as field hockey.
In soccer, Tony Vasquez played for Live Oak, and then, in his first year as coach of the girls team, led them to a share of a CCS title. Fittingly enough, he shared it with his brother.
Finally, Jeff Young was mentored under his former coach Brett Paolucci before taking over the program in 2015.
Making the move
“The transition was easy, but I was a little nervous and anxious because I don’t have the normal experience most coaches have,” Yeung said.
The transition can be a little awkward, especially if you aren’t far removed from being an athlete.
“It was weird to come back at first,” said Valenzuela, who graduated from Sobrato in 2011. “It’s been nice. It allows me to give back to my school and come back to where I was coached.”
Valenzuela didn’t intend to return until her brother told her that Sobrato didn’t have a coach for the cross country team, and it wouldn’t have a program without one.
So she stepped up and found herself in a surreal experience.
“It was hard, not being a runner anymore, to figure out how to coach the team,” Valenzuela said. “Now I had to give orders and set up the workouts rather than having coaches do that for me. I think that was the hardest part—making the workouts as coach and not a runner anymore.”
She graduated from San Jose State University this last fall with a degree in history, with an intention to go back to school to teach.
Yeung graduated in 2004, and later that year found himself back at the school helping with his brother’s junior varsity team.
A short time later, he was coaching the frosh/soph team. That experience was a real trial by fire.
“I had to learn how to deal with kids because at that point, I still felt like one of the players, being so fresh and new,” Yeung said. “I was definitely fiery. I thought it would be easy, but it’s never easy. It was definitely good to get my feet wet before I took over.”
The hardest part for Yeung was trying to figure out how to get the program back to where it was when he played.
Live Oak hasn’t been to the CCS playoffs since 2011-12. It hasn’t had a season above .500 since Yeung left high school.
“I think I was more frustrated than anything. Times were different when I took over in 06-07. At that time, Sobrato had been around already and the school population had been split,” he recalled.
From Yeung’s sophomore year through his senior campaign in 2004, the Acorns had routinely won 20 games.
When he took over as an assistant and as the frosh/soph coach, the varsity team was struggling to win more than 10 games. Since Yeung joined the coaching staff, the Acorns have reached 10 wins just twice since 2006.
Enjoying the opportunity
But for the frustration of not meeting the expectations he had as a player, Yeung said he was excited to have the opportunity to coach his alma mater.
“I felt extremely blessed to have this opportunity at 27, 28 years old when I first took over,” Yeung said. “The transition (to head coach) was definitely a lot easier. I felt like I was ready for the responsibility.”
As a comparison, Paolucci stepped down as head coach in 2007. When he did, Yeung said he wasn’t given an opportunity to apply for the position, much less even in the running to take over as head coach.
For Ronni Gautschi, the transition was a little easier.
She graduated from Live Oak in 2006 and moved on to San Diego State University. From there, she played professional water polo in Italy for a time before returning to the area to coach at San Benito High School.
After that Gautschi took over the girls program at Live Oak from Haines.
Then, when the boys job became open at Sobrato, she saw an opportunity to help boost water polo in Morgan Hill—not just at Live Oak.
Plus, her brother had already started coaching at Live Oak, returning from UC Santa Barbara where he played.
The Gautschis coached together for a year before Ronni moved over to Sobrato.
She is joined by Connor Bleeg, a 2014 graduate of Sobrato who has returned to coach the junior varsity girls team.
