After Tom Brady, Serra became a football power; meet the man who made it happen
SAN MATEO — Patrick Walsh started with a homespun homily and ended with a solemn prayer.
For much of four minutes Saturday, a church-like silence fell upon the Junipero Serra High School locker room as Walsh, the school’s football coach, addressed his rain-drenched team.
The Padres had just withstood a physically trying afternoon in defeating San Joaquin Memorial 28-18 to win a third California Interscholastic Federation Northern regional championship in four seasons.
Yet, no one was celebrating. Not when Walsh, all of 5-feet-6, began an unscripted sermon as players bunched together on a cold floor staring up into their coach’s piercing blue eyes.
“I am very, very thankful that you guys chose to come to Serra High School to be part of this,” Walsh said in the middle of the speech. “It’s hard. It’s a grinder’s jubilee. And isn’t it a joyous grind? I want you guys to do me a favor. This week, I just want you to think, I want you to breathe and I want you to feel. And I want you to feel each moment you are living next week. I want you to look around. I want you to look at nature. I want you to look at the sky. Did you guys see the rainbow before the game? That was fantastic. That was a message. I’m serious. Because what you are about to go through not many people get to go through. And you are going to be able to count these moments on one hand in a lifetime.”
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NFL star Tom Brady could not do it. Neither could home run king Barry Bonds or fellow baseball great Gregg Jeffries.
Serra’s sports royalty never appeared in the football playoffs although each excelled individually on the gridiron at the all-boys Catholic school in San Mateo. Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann played at Serra before the playoff format began.
Now it is difficult to imagine a postseason without the Padres, who will play for their second state championship in three years Saturday evening against Corona del Mar of Orange County.
In 19 years at Serra, Walsh’s teams have reached the playoffs 16 times and the Padres are 94-34 in the past decade. The only losing season came in 2005 when the team went 3-7.
Walsh, an undersized, big-hearted man whose passion for life cannot be tamed, has turned Serra into a Bay Area football powerhouse in the likeness of his storied alma mater across the bay, De La Salle.
“Patrick willed that program to win,” said Chris Vasseur, Walsh’s former defensive coordinator who now coaches at Clovis High. “He grabbed it by the scruff of the neck. Early on Patrick won a lot of games by sheer will.”
Words flowed from Walsh’s heart in the post-game talk Saturday. Walsh, 44, did not mention anything that had happened on the field just moments earlier. It ended with players and coaches reciting The Lord’s Prayer.
“We’re not about football,” Walsh said a little later in the locker room. “I love the platform it gives us to talk about the other things we talk about.”
In the myopic world of sports, Walsh’s vision expands well past the 120-yard long, 53⅓-yard wide field that he patrols from the sideline wearing a white cap held tight by headphones.
“A lot of time coaches get caught up in the scoreboard,” said Luke Bottari, Serra’s quarterback the previous three seasons.
Bottari, who has led College of San Mateo to the state community college championship Saturday, added, “The only thing he cares about is to develop those young men to be better fathers, husband, whatever they are. The work he puts in with them spiritually and emotionally generates the winning atmosphere.”
Walsh embraced the folksy metaphors long before arriving at Serra in 2001. The building blocks of a coaching career began at De La Salle High School in Concord where Walsh graduated in 1993 as class valedictorian.
Walsh is one of the most decorated players in the history of a nationally recognized football program developed by legendary coach Bob Ladouceur that got the Hollywood treatment with the 2014 movie “When the Games Stands Tall.”
Walsh had more than 4,000 yards rushing and scored 70 touchdowns in three years with the Spartans. In 1992, he scored a school-record 38 touchdowns and was part of the team that launched De La Salle’s famed 151-game win streak.
Walsh also was a three-time all-Bay Valley League baseball player after having learned the game in Little League under the tutelage of his father, Chick Walsh.
Chris Walsh said his younger brother found motivation in so many telling him he was too small to fulfill his big athletic dreams.
“‘You’re never going to start at De La Salle, you are never going to play two sports in college, you’re never, you’re never, you’re never,’” said Chris Walsh, who lives in Pleasanton. “He internalized that and said, ‘I’m going to show you.’”
And so he did. Walsh played football and baseball at San Jose State and finished his collegiate career playing one baseball season at the University of Texas. At San Jose State, he played for John Ralston and at Texas, for Augie Garrido, two giants in football and baseball coaching circles.
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After graduating college with a degree in English, Walsh returned to the Bay Area to begin coaching at De La Salle.
It was then he also became a surfer. A neighbor gave Walsh a gift lesson in Santa Cruz.
The instructor “put me on an 11-foot board, grabbed the back of my wetsuit and stood me up and I was hooked from that day on,” Walsh said.
Surfing provides the one avenue for Walsh to get away from his 24/7 nonstop life that includes co-owning the youth sports business Next Level. After the youth flag football season ends in March, Walsh and his family plan to spend 10 days on Maui, where sister Amanda Walsh Dennis lives. Patrick Walsh said he and son Charlie, 11, hope to surf every day.
“No cell phones, just become one with the water,” he said.
After serving three years as a De La Salle assistant coach, Walsh took over at Serra, a program that had qualified for the Central Coast Section playoffs only three times since the postseason system started in 1972.
Now the Padres are the standard-bearers for a Central Coast Section that spans from King City to San Francisco. Walsh, though, acts as if he just happens to be along for the ride. He credits his assistants and players for the triumphs. He blames himself for every defeat.
“Family,” a hand-me-down theme throughout sports culture, is central to everything he does. On Saturday, Walsh’s son Charlie followed his father on the field and stood in the center of sideline huddles. Walsh’s father, who helps run the Next Level business that has more than 10,000 kids playing flag football from January to March, stood on the sideline often yelling encouragement to players. So did brother Chris Walsh. Younger brother Nicholas Walsh, a Serra defensive line coach, sat in the stands with his wife and newborn child. Their mother Madeline sat with them.
Patrick Walsh raced up and down the sideline following each play, impervious to the driving rain and swirling winds.
“There’s no quit in him,” Ladouceur said. “There’s no such thing that ‘this is impossible’ to him. With him, it seems like everything’s possible to a point where I’m like, ‘Come on!’”
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Central Coast Section officials banned Serra from the 2015 playoffs after the school forfeited a 2014 playoff consolation game because of safety concerns.
Walsh said he has no regrets about deciding not to play the morning of the game despite scathing criticism from some corners of the high school football community. He said he wants the number 1 placed in front of his record after retiring.
The 1 represents the forfeit.
“I’m as proud of that forfeit as anything at Serra,” he said. “It says everything about who we are.”
The episode is one of the few times something has stayed with Walsh, who said, “I get sad when I think about the past, nostalgia crushes my heart.”
He does not dwell in the future, either, because what comes next gets him nervous.
“I don’t have time to look back,” Walsh said. “I don’t have time to look for tomorrow. I just want to feel the truth of the relationships that are forming now.”
He wants nothing more than to tell the people around them how much he loves them.
“We need more love on this planet,” Walsh said. “We can do it through football. We can seek this humble lifestyle where I think the true strength is.”
Then Walsh added, “I don’t know much about it. I’m trying to figure it out.”
