John Paye earns his 400th win as head coach at Menlo School

Paye’s overall career win total is higher than 400, as he also coached girls’ basketball at Woodside Priory and Notre Dame-Belmont for two years each, and also coached the boys’ team at Priory for two years. Now 57, he has spent two tenures at Menlo, first from 1988-91 and again from 2009 to the present.

“I’ve been coaching Menlo for five decades,” Paye said. “So, it’s a long time. I guess I don’t feel that old. But I am in my 50s.”

Paye has coached some exceptional point guards at Menlo, starting with his younger sister Kate — now the associate head coach for the Stanford women’s basketball team — from 1988-91, during which time the Knights won three state championships. In the 2018-19 season, Paye and the Knights won the program’s fourth state title led by sophomore point guard Avery Lee.

Now, Menlo touts another fine point guard in Karen Xin. The sophomore totaled 19 points and seven steals in Thursday’s win, finding her stroke from beyond the arc late in the game to finish with four 3-pointers. She now has 10 3s in the tournament after hitting six in Wednesday’s 71-46 win over Lincoln-SF.

“It wasn’t always like that,” Xin said, who didn’t start developing her long game until working with assistant coach Tony Real upon her arrival at Menlo last season. “But now, I think I’ve started to realize, especially last year, my 3-point shot just opened up everything else. So, when I’m able to shoot, they have to respect me, so then I can go past them.”

It hasn’t taken her long to emerge as one of the best pure shooters to play the point at Menlo.

“We’ve had a great tradition of point guards here in my five decades of coaching,” Paye said. “My sister is a point guard, but most recently we’ve had Avery Lee, who went to Yale, Sam Erisman, Lauren Lete — some great point guards. … Karen might be our best pure outside shooter we’ve had, ever.”

It took the Knights some time to establish their shot against a Presentation team coached by Gary Plummer, who also coaches Xin and Menlo sophomore center Ruiqi Liu with the Silicon Valley Basketball Club.

Menlo shot 40% from the floor throughout, including just 8 of 23 from 3-point territory. In the fourth quarter, though, the Knights were 10 of 16 from the field, including 4 of 5 from downtown.

“Our shots weren’t falling that consistently in the first half, but it certainly went in the second half,” Paye said. “We were just kind of waiting for the shots to go in. Once we hit a couple in a row, we just got relaxed.”

Four Menlo players finished in double digits, with senior Jordan Brooks totaling 14 points, Liu totaling 12 and junior Summer Young scoring 10.

“Coach Plummer’s our coach (with SVBC) … so we know he’s going to keep an eye on us two,” Xin said. “So, we’ve got to figure out how to make it work, get our teammates involved, get each other involved.”

Menlo led from wire to wire, opening the game on an 8-0 run. When the Knights’ shooters quickly cooled, however, Presentation senior center Sophia Campbell proved an early force on the boards. She’d go on to total a team-high seven rebounds, five of them coming in the first half.

But the Knights ultimately won the battle on the boards, outrebounding Presentation 51-49 in the game. Liu finished with a game-high 12 rebounds.

“I really think we were a little bit scared off by their size,” Paye said. “We really stressed rebounding and I think we won the rebounding battle even though we weren’t as tall.”

Menlo’s takeaways were key, though. Spurred by Xin’s seven steals, the Knights pounced on Presentation’s 18 turnovers, while minding them ball themselves by only turning it over six times.

The Knights won ever quarter, and really started hitting their stride in the fourth. Liu’s clutch passing produced five assists, including four in the final period, twice on Xin 3s.

“Our philosophy is just take good shots,” Xin said. “At some point they’re going to fall. We just have to believe that.”

Paye started coaching at Menlo during the 1987-88 season as a member of the San Francisco 49ers when the NFL was strike for 24 days at the start of the 1987 season. He won 143 games during his first tenure with Menlo and has won another 257 since returning in 2008-09.

“It’s super special because he’s such a great coach,” Liu said of win No. 400. “I feel like it’s really important. … It’s just really special.”