Drew Petiti enjoys retirement after 29 years as head coach — by coaching

After moving to the East Bay in the offseason, Petiti joined the Alhambra boys’ basketball staff, headed by the oldest of his three sons, Chris Petiti. His youngest son, Mark Petiti, also coaches at Alhambra for the boys’ junior-varsity basketball team, and sometimes joins the varsity staff as a game-day assistant.

“I try to sit down as much as I can now,” Drew Petiti said.

For as low-key and mild-mannered as he is off the court, Drew Petiti’s trenchant sideline alter-ego was as dramatic as a superhero’s. It’s a persona the Peninsula basketball world knows well. The longtime coach started his career heading several different junior-varsity teams in the Peninsula Athletic League before taking over the varsity program at South City, where he spent 12 years, and coached Chris Petiti. That was followed by 12 more years at the King’s Academy in Sunnyvale, where Chris Petiti served on his father’s staff, and Drew Petiti coached his younger two sons, Stephen and Mark.

While he still works as a teacher at TKA to this day, he returned to the PAL in 2018-19 to run the varsity program at San Mateo. After stepping away from coaching in 2019-20, he returned in the pandemic spring season of 2021 to head up Leland in San Jose for four seasons.

Now, the owner of 413 career varsity wins, Drew Petiti is helping craft the defense as Chris Petiti embarks on his second year as Alhambra’s head coach. The Bulldogs’ most recent win, a 73-69 overtime thriller at Miramonte-Orinda, Friday, Dec. 20 — one that saw Drew Petiti revert to form in OT, as he spent most of it on his feet, including jumping onto the court with a charismatic fist-pump after senior Samuel Gillaspy scored a transition layup with two seconds to play to put the game on ice — marked Chris Petiti’s 105th career victory.

“Mainly I do some of the defensive stuff,” Drew Petiti said. “I do whatever he wants ... but the good thing is I know all his stuff. ... This is the stuff we’d run together (at TKA). So, I can teach it and help him out like that.”

Honored by South City

While Alhambra was doing battle with Miramonte in its final game before the winter break, across the Bay, the South City Warriors were battling in their own right, en route to winning their former coach’s namesake tournament. It was three years ago when South City rebranded their annual boys’ basketball tournament as the Drew Petiti Warrior Classic, with the inaugural tourney in 2021-22, fittingly, being won by Petiti and Leland. This season marks the first time South City has claimed the championship in the four years since the tournament was renamed.

In this year’s Petiti Warrior Classic finals, South City rallied for a 71-62 win over Summit Shasta. Apropos, considering Shasta is coached by another one of Petiti’s former players, Jorge Chevez, who graduated from South City in 1996.

Drew Petiti’s South City teams were the stuff of legend. Not just competitively — although the program has never come close to matching the 23-7 record the 2005-06 Warriors etched in his final season coaching there — but in making the kinds of lifetime memories off the court great teams come to relish, such as the Warriors’ annual road trip to play tournament ball in Reno.

“Just a good leader of young men and just a players’ coach,” said Chevez, who started his varsity coaching career at South City in 2008-09. “I think that’s why we all loved playing for him. At South City, it was a really good, diverse team at the time ... so, I just remember the good times at practice. The Reno trip that year was just amazing. So, just good memories.”

It’s that legacy as a players’ coach Chris Petiti embraces, as well.

“Clearly he’s left a mark on their lives,” Chris Petiti said. “They’ve had good basketball experiences, but he’s also helped guide them along on their journeys. ... That’s always in the back of my mind, trying to connect with the kids.”

Maintaining the legacy

As a basketball prodigy, Chris Petiti said he’s had the benefit of being on the bench with his father essentially his whole life. Then there was the behind-the-scenes stuff, the father and son breaking down game tapes in the days of VHS on a small TV in Chris Petiti’s room.

“He was always intense and competitive, and he was always putting in the effort behind the scenes that nobody saw,” Chris Petiti said. “But I would see it.”

Drew Petiti’s loyalty toward his players is directly linked to the reason he reached 400 wins. The number was in the back of his mind, for sure, when he finished the 2022-23 season at Leland sitting on 393 wins, as he was contemplating stepping away for good.

It was Leland’s majority junior roster — a roster of players he hadn’t told he was likely retiring after that 7-17 season, matching the worst overall record of Petiti’s career — that convinced him otherwise. Even if they didn’t know how they were changing their veteran coach’s mind.

“I was really drained,” Petiti said, “but some of the kids, the juniors, after the last game ... they didn’t know I was going to retire. A couple of the kids said things, they didn’t even know (the impact of) what they were saying. ... So, I was thinking I was going to do it at least one more year.”

Reaching 400, and beyond

The change of heart turned into Drew Petiti’s best single-season record since his days at South City. Thanks to Leland’s postseason run into the 2023-24 Central Coast Section Division II semifinals, Petiti reached 20 overall wins for the first time since 2005-06. Sure, he earned career win No. 400 early in the season — Dec. 19, 2023, in a 48-40 victory at Lincoln-San Jose — but it was win No. 410 at Silver Creek-San Jose that meant the most to him.

It was the regular-season finale, with the Blossom Valley Athletic League Santa Teresa East Division championship on the line. With the game tied 51-51 in the closing seconds, Leland missed a shot at a game-winner as the buzzer sounded. But, after Silver Creek appealed to the referees about the time remaining in regulation, one second was placed back on the clock with the Raiders taking possession.

Silver Creek never put the ball into play, however, as the baseline inbound pass hit the backboard for a turnover with no time running off the clock. Leland then inbounded on their half of the court, with the pass finding junior forward Gurkaran Khehra at the top of the key for a buzzer-beater 3-pointer to send the Chargers to a 54-51 victory.

“He hit the shot and we stormed the court,” Petiti said. “It was incredible.”

It was part of what Petiti termed a “magical run” to close out his storied career as a head coach, including three CCS playoff wins to follow. That run was capped by another thriller, a 34-33 victory over Woodside, in the Division II quarterfinals.

With Alhambra off to a 6-3 start this season, there stands to be more magic to come. ’Twas a different kind of magic, altogether, experienced by Drew Petiti just five days before Christmas, in that overtime thriller at Miramonte, coaching alongside his sons.

“The three of us,” Drew Petiti said, “it was just so much fun.”

CORRECTION: This article was edited to correct Chris Petiti’s career win total. He has 105 career wins in his seven years of varsity coaching, including six seasons at Alhambra and one at Overfelt.