Longtime football coach out at Terra Nova

On behalf of the entire Terra Nova community, I thank him for his years of service to the Terra Nova football program.

We will begin the process of hiring a new football coach immediately.”

Adams said he was called to the principal’s office Friday afternoon, “and told I would no longer be the head football coach.” He said no reason was given for not bringing him back.

“I was kind of hit with a bomb Friday,” he said.

The 2018 season marked Adams’ 11th season with the program. He spent the first six years as the offensive coordinator/co-head coach under former longtime coach Bill Gray.

During his time as the offensive coordinator, the Tigers compiled a Peninsula Athletic League record of 26-6, going undefeated in Bay Division play three times and winning five straight division title from 2009 to 2013. Overall, the Tigers were 47-22 and won the 2010 Central Coast Section Division IV championship.

When Gray retired following the 2013 season, Adams was named the new head coach. Since taking over the head coaching duties, Adams, 59, has a Bay Division mark of 10-15, finishing third in the standings in both 2014 and 2018. 

Adams did, however, guide the Tigers to two CCS title games — beating Monte Vista Christian for the Division IV crown in 2014 and losing to Half Moon Bay in the 2017 Open Division III championship game.

The Tigers qualified for CCS five out of six seasons since Adams took over the program. Overall, Adams guided the Tigers to a 37-28 record in five years as head coach. Terra Nova’s 8-3 record this past season was the best under Adams.

Adams said he intends to coach for the 2019 season. He prefer it be at Terra Nova, but will look at all his options.

“I’m a football coach,” said Adams, who has coached continuously since 1989. “I’m going to coach.”

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Chalk up another “I’ve never seen that before” moment in my sportswriting career. Friday night, Sequoia head girls’ basketball coach Steve Picchi was “benched” for the final two-and-a-half quarters of the Cherokees’ 52-37 win over Menlo-Atherton.

About midway through the second quarter, Picchi accidentally bumped into one member of the three-man officiating crew during a M-A fastbreak. Rules state the official can assess a technical foul — which results in a pair of foul shots for the opposing team — as well as force the coach to sit on the bench for the rest of the game, which Picchi dutifully did, although he was warned once about standing up after the infraction.

Apparently it is up to the official to decide if they want to slap a “T” on a coach. Maybe there should be some kind of sideline warning issued first, like happens in football. There is not a lot of running room along the sidelines and baselines of most basketball courts at Peninsula schools. When you mix in a scorer’s table, chairs for the substitute players and coaches on one side, bleacher seating less than 3 feet away from the sideline on the other side and padded walls on the baseline because the back walls of gyms are about two steps out of bounds, there can be quite a bit of traffic for referees to navigate. Add in a couple baseline photographers (of which I am one) and gesticulating coaches who stalk up and down the sidelines and there is bound to be contact at some point.

I can see a coach and ref accidentally colliding at which point, all involved would figure it out and wouldn’t happen again.

That didn’t happen Friday night, however. The ref banged him, Picchi took a seat and the game finished without incident. It was just weird to see a coach sitting on the bench for that long a time.

***

There was another loss in the extended Peninsula coaching family as Mike Parodi Sr., father of Hillsdale head football coach Mike Parodi Jr. and San Mateo girls’ water polo and swimming coach Kathy Parodi, died over the weekend.

Longtime Hillsdale coach Andy Hodzic died earlier this month.

Parodi Sr. was a longtime assistant football coach at City College of San Francisco and was a regular first at San Mateo High School, where Mike Parodi Jr. started his head coaching career, and continued at Hillsdale games. After every game, Junior would seek out Senior for a post-game hug.

Mike Parodi Jr. said in a Twitter post: “I lost my hero tonight. Every passion I have in life, I learned from him. Family, friends, football, the lake, teaching. He coached me in many sports for many years & I got to coach with him at CCSF — so cool. He was a great man, but most importantly, he was my Dad.”

Parodi Jr. said in another post his father, 69, suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.