Former San Benito and Santa Clara coach set to assume Mustangs’
post
It’s been the hardest, some might even say the worst, kept secret in the Garlic City.
But on Thursday afternoon it became official – Richard Hammond will be Darren Yafai’s successor as the Gilroy Mustangs head football coach.
“He was scheduled to sign all the paper work (Wednesday),” confirmed Gilroy High School principal, James Maxwell, Thursday afternoon. “We are scheduled to introduce him to the players and staff on Tuesday. He’s a very enthusiastic and excellent math teacher and when I hire a coach that’s what I have to look at first. We’re very excited to have him on board.”
Hammond, who grew up and went to school in Hollister, graduating from Hollister High School (now San Benito) in 1997, has had the coaching bug for as long as he can remember.
In 1998, after attending Cal-Poly for one year Hammond returned home to Hollister in time for the birth of his now 7-year old brother. That football season, Hollister’s head coach Chris Cameron asked Hammond to join him as an assistant on the sidelines. A position that he readily accepted.
“I’m thrilled to be coming back to Gilroy. Going back to Hollister and coaching with my mentor that was a dream. And now to have the head coaching job at a place that I’ve grown to love, it’s become what you might now call the dream job,” Hammond admits.
After one season back home, Hammond attended Cabrillo College for a year. When he returned and enrolled at San Jose State University in 2000 Hammond rejoined the Hollister coaching staff for the next two football seasons.
Then came the move that would bring Hammond to Gilroy for his first coaching stint as a Mustang.
“I’ve known Rich since he was a kid and definitely was my choice to take over the program,” said Darren Yafai, a former assistant coach at Hollister and the person that Hammond succeeds as head coach at Gilroy. “I can remember coaching Rich as a freshman in high school and even back then he was busy scheming plays and trying to think of new things that would work on the field.”
“In March of 2003 a teaching position as a Math teacher opened up at Gilroy High School and the following fall I joined the Mustangs’ coaching staff as the Defensive Coordinator,” Hammond relates. “And then I got the opportunity to move on to Santa Clara as the head coach up there. It was a job that I felt like at the time I had to take.”
And for the past two seasons Hammond has served as Santa Clara’s head man, leading them to a 9-1 record this past season.
Yafai admitted that after the second game of the 2005 season he decided this would, in fact, be his last year as head coach. After informing his family and coaching staff of his decision, the next call he made was to Hammond.
“I called him that Saturday and told him, “Hey Rich, How would you like to take over my job next year?’ I knew that the job was appealing to him and from that day forward the wheels were in motion,” Yafai explained. “The guy that everybody wanted to take over the program got it. He’s young and energetic. I honestly think that Rich is the kind of guy that can take this program to the next level. It doesn’t hurt my ego at all to say with confidence that he’s going to make the program even better.”
