South City’s back ... with new head coach

In taking the head coaching reins of the Warriors from Frank Moro this season, Pua enjoyed an auspicious season opener, earning his first career win with Friday’s 40-18 throttling of San Lorenzo Valley. And it was quite the family affair — and perhaps the beginnings of a Pua dynasty — as his four sons are all currently on staff with South City football.

“We were excited,” said Moro, now serving as assistant coach. “It was a good time. He did a great job.”

The win also marks the first time South City has won a season opener since 2015.

As for celebrating Pua’s first win No. 1, however, well, that’s a different story.

“No, just ran home and went to sleep,” Pua said. “I was so exhausted. … I didn’t know how much hard work it was.”

Moro took an assistant coaching role with the Warriors this season and has announced he will retire from coaching entirely at the end of the year. He returned to the sideline last year to resurrect the South City football program, which did not field a varsity team in 2021.

Not only did Moro oversee the end of the infamous 26-game losing streak spanning three-plus seasons, he also reestablished the once thriving, competitive program, leading the Warriors to a winning record, 6-4 overall and 5-2 in Peninsula Athletic League Lake Division play, earning a second-place tie with archrival El Camino.

Before Moro began his second stint as head coach in 2022 — the first spanned from 2003-13 — he informed South City he would only coach for two years.

“This is it,” Moro said. “I told them last year that I can’t do it that long.”

As an on-campus teacher, Moro plans to retire as an educator at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Since former head coach Jay Oca’s departure following the 2016 season, four other head coaches have run the South City football program.

A 1988 graduate of South San Francisco High School, who played for the Warriors when Moro was an assistant coach on Mike Tenerowicz’s staff, Pua interviewed for the Warriors head coaching position prior to 2017, but was passed over for off-campus coach Jermaine Lee. Lee departed after two years, and so the Warriors’ coaching carousel began. After serving as an assistant on Oca’s staff with the Warriors from 2014-16, Pua moved to Capuchino with Oca in 2017.

Pua said he was contemplating stepping away from coaching but returned to South City in 2022 to work on Moro’s staff and help to save the ailing football program.

“After what they were going through and didn’t have a team, I was like: ‘I need to be a bigger man and come back,’” Pua said.

Now, the “Pua” name may continue to blossom well beyond this season.

Two of Pua’s sons are now serving on South City’s varsity staff: Kolson Pua is the team’s offensive coordinator, and Kolone Isaac Pua is the defensive coordinator. Serving as head coach of the junior-varsity Warriors is his youngest son Kalvin, while his oldest son Maligi Maluia is the JV offensive coordinator.

Pua has one other child, his daughter Nia, a former cheerleader at El Camino, where she graduated in 2022. So, when Pua learned at the start of the current school year South City didn’t have a cheerleading coach, his first inclination was to recommend her for the job.

“We almost were going to tell her she could coach cheer … but they hired a cheer coach just last week,” Pua said.

Moro said he is remaining of staff through this season to help secure the virtues that helped him reestablish the program.

“This is what I’m trying to pass on to him is the academics, making sure everyone is eligible, practice plans, making sure we have the facilities, obviously game-time plan … and he’s doing a great job with that,” Moro said.

The plan is for Pua to continue coaching beyond this season.

“If the good Lord still keeps waking me up in the morning, I’ll still be coaching,” Pua said. “And then hopefully my boys will take over.”