Poulos ends football coaching career at Sequoia

She said a search for his replacement is underway.

In the eight seasons before Poulos’ arrival, Sequoia had an overall record of 23-48-3 and a Peninsula Athletic League record of 20-40, mostly in the Ocean Division, when the PAL employed a two-division system.

In his 15 seasons with the Ravens, Poulos amassed an overall record of 82-64 and was 34-38 in PAL play — across all three divisions of the PAL. Poulos is just one of two coaches to have taken a program from the PAL’s least competitive division — the Lake — and moved it to the Bay Division, one of five “A” division in the Central Coast Section. The Ravens spent three seasons, 2015 to 2017, playing against the best the PAL had to offer. Last season, they played in the Ocean Division.

“There is never a good time. … The 30 (years coaching overall) and 15 (with Sequoia), it kind of made it a clean break. I’ve coached longer than I’ve taught,” said Poulos, 56, who will remain with the school as the physical education department head. He also spent 10 years as the school’s athletic director.

“You need to have a high level of energy to run this. Five years ago, I told [Schmidt] I was getting toward the end, so we should think about where it (the program) should go,” Poulos continued. “But then COVID hit and I felt like I needed to help the program through that, and weirdly, I got reinvigorated.

“But the last two years, I’ve been exhausted. … You don’t want to get out there where you’re just going through the motions.”

In just his second season, Poulos guided Sequoia to the CCS Division II championship game, a 47-14 loss to Willow Glen. It was the Ravens’ first title-game appearance since 1986 and only the third CCS appearance since the inception of the section in 1972. The Ravens also made playoff appearances in 2012 and 2023.

'Not even on my radar'

Not too bad for a guy who literally fell into coaching. Poulos played a little football his senior year at Pinole Valley High School in the East Bay and played some rugby at UC Davis, but he had no thoughts of going into coaching.

“It wasn’t even on my radar,” Poulos said. “I knew I wanted to teach. I knew I wanted to help people. I liked teaching. The coaching thing was completely random.”

It was while working a substitute science teacher at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento. Unbeknownst to Poulos, the science teacher was also the head football coach when Poulos noticed football plays diagramed on paper in the classroom. When he popped into the classroom, Poulos just randomly asked him about coaching.

The coach, in turn, conducted an informal interview and the next thing Poulos knew, he was as assistant coach for the school’s freshman team.

“It’s as random as it sounds,” Poulos said. “It was a weird gig because it was a Wing-T school, but we had nothing for defense. Nothing for special teams. … I was defensive coordinating freshman football without knowing anything about defense.

“(The coaching staff) it was me, the wrestling coach — who didn’t know anything about football, either, and just wanted to recruit kids for wrestling. The third guy had coached Pop Warner and his kid was coming through the school and he wanted to move up to high school coaching.”

Playing the coaching game

But as a teacher, Poulos saw coaching as another way to connect with students and teach them different things in different ways.

That was in the mid-1990s. In 2001, he got his first coaching job, taking over at Concord High School. In three seasons with the Minutemen, Poulos’ teams won just two games.

“I jumped into my first head coaching job before I was ready and I wasn’t prepared for it,” Poulos said. “After three years, I realized how little I knew. It really set me up (to successful at) Sequoia.”

During his time in Concord, his wife started feeling home sick for her Southern California roots, so they decided to make a move, with Poulos finding a teaching and assistant coaching job at Vista Murrieta in 2004. In his five seasons, the Broncos compiled a record of 44-14 and Poulos was part of a coaching staff that, program wide, included five former head coaches and another handful of coaches who had served as coordinators.

“That was like going to (coaching) grad school,” Poulos said. “It was like a college program.”

Not only did Poulos learn the Xs and Os of the game at Vista Murrieta, he learned how to really run a program — from setting up practices to organizational skills key to running a high school football team.

Landing at Sequoia

When he started to miss the Bay Area, he and his wife moved back to Northern California and again he found what he was looking for: a teaching and coaching job — at Sequoia.

“It looked there was a lot of potential (at Sequoia), it just needed some organization,” Poulos said. “I knew that stuff now (after my time at Vista Murrieta).”

His first goal was to build a culture of inclusion and learning at Sequoia. Poulos had a four-pronged approach when he came to Redwood City and really, none of them had anything to do with the mechanics of football. It all had to do with making the learning environment fun.

“How can we be different here?” Poulos said.

The first was simply for the players to start showing pride in the program —  something as simple as branded “Sequoia football” T-shirts and shorts for spring and summer workouts.

He then implemented an overnight “camp” on campus just before the official start of the season. It was a three days and two nights spent in what Poulos called, “summer-campish.”

He also set up an annual travel game in which the Ravens went on an actual overnight road trip. Poulos took the team to Southern California, Oregon and Washington, among other places, and this past season, the Ravens went to Maui for their season opener.

“We figured most of these kids aren’t going to play in college so let’s give them a college experience,” Poulos said. “Let’s give them one weekend where they get to stay in a hotel before a game.”

The fourth component Poulos implemented was one of personal growth for the student-athletes.

“How to shake hands. How to treat women, deal with bullies. PEDs,” Poulos said.

But as the job of coaching has become a lot more of a year-round commitment than it’s ever been, Poulos said he simply can’t give the position the time it needs.

“It was perfectly encapsulated when I saw my principal — this was after the post-season banquet,” Poulos said.

He said they were talking about the recently completed season, when the principal said, “You finally get to put a pin in it,” Poulos said, a euphemism about putting an exclamation point on the year.

“I think six times that day, someone asked me how offseason preparation was going. It really hit home.

“I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I’ve had two principals who have been supportive, parents who have been very supportive. I hear some of the horror stories (about both).

“Thirty years is a long time.”