Longtime Mills basketball coach Dave Matsu dies

The longest tenured girls’ basketball head coach in San Mateo County, Matsu took over the strong Mills program in 2007-08. The Vikings reached the postseason in each of his 17 years as the official head coach. Bestowed with the 2022-23 Central Coast Section Honor Coach Award for girls’ basketball last season, his career culminated last season in Mills’ first CCS championship since 1985, with his son Justin serving as co-head coach alongside him.

“I just think he was the perfect guy at the perfect school where he had the support,” said Paul Carion, who coached against Matsu with three different Peninsula Athletic League girls’ basketball teams. “He was very engrained in the community. All the girls knew going in that they were going to go in and play with him. He just built a place where players and parents … were comfortable they were going in to play for a very good high school basketball program, which I don’t think a lot of players and parents feel these days.”

Matsu was known for his passionate coaching style. Stern but fair, emotional but endearing, he was intent on bringing a family environment to Mills’ sports community. He took over the Vikings just three years after the death of another legendary Mills girls’ basketball coach, Kelly Shea-Gallo, who succumbed to cancer in 2004.

Matsu introduced the mantra “ohana,” the Hawaiian word for “family,” as an enduring legacy through his years with the girls’ basketball program.

“Ohana” came full circle in 2021-22 when his son, Justin, joined his coaching staff. While Matsu was listed as the Vikings’ head coach for the past two years, he entrusted Justin with running the team on the court. Justin had grown up with the Mills program, accompanying his father to practices since he was a young boy.

“Being a mentor, that’s what it’s all about,” Dave Matsu said in a February 2023 interview. “Being able to give back and wanting the best for your kids. And being able to provide Justin with this opportunity, it means the world to me.”

Matsu was born in December 1968. He grew up in Burlingame, where he attended Franklin Elementary School. He graduated in 1987 from Mills, where he played basketball for coach Bob Thompson. He went on to coach at Mercy-Burlingame, where he worked on staff for San Mateo County Sports Hall of Fame coach Mike Ciardella.

It was as a fourth grader at Franklin Elementary where Matsu first played against great area basketball coach Steve Picchi, when Picchi coached against the Franklin team. In the years to come, the two would form a lifelong friendship.

“Just a class act, a great coach,” Picchi said. “There’s no words I can say that can express how sad I am about this because it’s just too soon for him to go. … My heart goes out to his whole family.”

In Matsu’s years with Mills, Picchi’s daughter Christine became an integral part of the “ohana” community. She is known for her regular pregame performances in singing the national anthem for Mills’ home games. With Mills playing as the home team in last season’s CCS Division III championship game at Santa Clara High School, she was asked by Matsu to sing the anthem. Because of the neutral site, there was some disagreement as the national anthem protocol, but Matsu fought for Christine to perform, Picchi said.

“What a kind man Dave was,” Picchi said. “He treated everybody so well and with tremendous kindness. In particular, the way he treated my daughter so well and invited her to sing the national anthem … I just can’t express how much that means to me.”

For the past three years, Matsu coached with the San Jose Ninjas 12th grade club basketball team. He coached his last game for them within recent weeks. One of the players on his Ninjas team, Jake Nakamura, is the son of longtime Presentation girls’ basketball coach Wade Nakamura, who coached against Matsu several times in the CCS playoffs.

Wade Nakamura is affiliated with the Positive Coaching Alliance, a pilot program that now runs nationwide, but originated at Stanford University. Nakamura said Matsu befriended him much in part to his curiosity about the 13-week courses of the PCA. It was something Matsu pursued in an effort to evolve from his old-school approach, and it made quite an impact on his coaching style, Nakamura said.

“Definite difference,” Nakamura said. “I think Dave would admit he was more … old school, he was a yeller, he was more about being an intimidating presence on the sideline. And I think he didn’t like that. … He immediately gave me feedback that: ‘Man, this is working,’ and he really liked it, and he really liked the change in him.”

A graduate of Mills, Matsu met longtime friend Ron Ozorio when they were students there. Ozorio, now the head coach of the Carlmont boys’ basketball team, coached with Matsu at Mercy-Burlingame and with the Burlingame Parks & Recreation Department.

“The main thing is what everyone always knows,” Ozorio said, “how much his family — Mills is big on that ‘ohana’ family — so the happiness of his family and his friends was his whole life.”

Celebration of life and memorial plans for Matsu are yet to be announced.