Rumors were percolating around Serra's football coach. Here's how he responded.

Patrick Walsh, the head football coach at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, knew his unusual announcement – that he was, in fact, staying at the Bay Area powerhouse – would draw a bit of attention. After all, many people might not have known there was even a question about it.

“Most of them are like, ‘Wait, were you gonna leave?’” Walsh told SFGATE in a phone call on Tuesday.

Walsh, who is in his 26th season at the San Mateo school and is the program’s winningest coach with 214 victories, said rumors that this would be his last season have been building in the Serra circles. Multiple parents have come up to him, some with children in the lower levels of the program or in middle school, asking if those whispers were true.

“There’s a lot of great options on the San Francisco Peninsula on where to go to school, from San Jose to San Francisco,” Walsh said. So he decided to set the record straight. “In this day and age, uniformity with programs and just having stability is important to people … If this is important to you and this is something that’s gonna affect your decision to apply to Serra or, you know, transfer from Serra – this is a new world out there – then I’m just letting you know I’m staying.”

On Monday, Walsh gathered the entire Padre football program – varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams – in the school’s gymnasium and told them his news. Or lack of news, as it were. He also spoke to student journalist Tamer Muhawieh, a freshman at Santa Clara University who graduated from Serra last year and who has been covering the Padre football team this season, for a story that went out on Monday night.

Walsh confirmed to the gathered group that he plans to stay in charge of the program “indefinitely.” Muhawieh’s story, complete with an NFL insider-style breaking news graphic, was quickly celebrated on social media, including by ex-NFL standout David Bakhtiari, a longtime Packers offensive lineman who played for Walsh.

The rumors mostly started because this year is, as Walsh acknowledged, a big “inflection point” for him as a coach and a parent. His younger son Charlie is a senior and will graduate in the spring. That family shift “forced” coach Walsh and his wife, who works for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, to consider other options for when their son heads to college, like moving to Florida or Texas.

Walsh also said the thought of coaching at a higher level, like college or the pros, has been “extremely appealing” to him in the past. But in evaluating things with his family, he realized how much he believes in the value of coaching at the high school level, where winning isn’t the only thing that matters.

“Football is just merely a pulpit to teach life’s greater lessons, not only for the team but for myself,” Walsh said. “Every fall is like a renewal, an opportunity to look introspectively into myself, things I can do better in my life. ‘How can I lead these kids better? How can I create an environment where they have an experience where they truly love one another and ultimately end up in each other’s weddings?’ Like, that’s important to me.”

“I’m not sure if I could do the same thing at the college and NFL level. I just don’t know,” he said. Mostly, he worried that higher, more competitive levels of coaching may not afford him the time to shape his players and share his vision. “I think it’s, you get a couple years to do that, and then you’re fired,” he said.

Of course, he can’t necessarily just lose 50 straight games as a high school coach, either. Thankfully, the rumors of his employment haven’t been a distraction on the field, and Serra has had a strong 5-1 start to the season. (Their only loss is against Walsh’s alma mater De La Salle, the top program in all of Northern California.)

Still, when individual discussions didn’t seem to quell the chatter, Walsh decided to make a more pronounced statement. That set up Monday’s meeting. Walsh said the only other time that he’s gathered the entire program together in the gym was on the day he was hired in 2001. “It was almost like a blink of an eye that, 26 years later, I’m in the same spot,” Walsh said.

It’s worth noting that Walsh did admit that he hasn’t signed any long-term contracts with Serra, though he definitely plans to be around for awhile longer. In fact, when he heard about a coaching friend in Georgia who recently celebrated his 450th career win, he wondered if that could be him, too. Walsh, who currently has 214, would have to continue coaching for a few decades to get there.

“There’s no rule that says anybody that is doing what they love to do has to leave by a certain point,” Walsh said. “I don’t know how many years it would take to win 450 games, but there are some high school coaches who have coached well into their 70s. Could that be me? I don’t know.”

Walsh added: “I’m a NorCal native. This is my home. I’ve had the opportunity to raise two boys here and put them through Serra. So Serra High School is in the blood now. I’ve still got some green in my blood – four years at De La Salle, I’m an alum there, I still love that school – but I’m a Padre through and through.”

Most Read

Advice

| My wife is unable to have sex, but I still want it. What can I do?
Local | SF’s bougiest street is an ultrawealthy construction site
Health | How I went from ‘healthy’ to a quadruple bypass in weeks
Sports

| Private investigator shakes up a California high school

Read our stories ad-free on the new SFGATE app.

This article originally published at Rumors were percolating around Serra’s football coach. Here’s how he responded..