Former Gilroy assistant coach, Rich Hammond, accepts job as
Gilroy’s head football coach
Gilroy – 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 in Hollister and graduated from Hollister High School (now San Benito) in 1997, has had the coaching bug for as long as he can remember.
“I’m thrilled to be coming back to Gilroy. Going back to Hollister and coaching with my mentor (Chris Cameron) that was a dream,” Hammond said. “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.”
In 1998, after attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 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 he readily accepted.
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 and teaching stint as a Mustang.
“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 said. “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.”
For the past two seasons, Hammond has served as Santa Clara’s head man, leading them to a 9-1 regular season record this past season before losing 22-13 to Piedmont Hills in the state tournament.
“I’ve known Rich since he was a kid and he definitely was my choice to take over the program,” said Darren Yafai, a former assistant coach at Hollister and the person 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 patterns that would work on the field.”
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 the 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.”
Hammond admits that it will be interesting “to say the least” when the two arch rivals Hollister and Gilroy meet in next year’s coveted Prune Bowl.
“It’s tough, you know, because those guys over there are my mentors. They’re the ones that taught me the game of football,” Hammond reminisced. “But having worked in both communities, I realize how similar both are to one another which is probably the reason the rivalry is so strong. I think now that I’ve been away for awhile I realize how great the people here in our two communities really are.
“It’s just not the same up there in Santa Clara. They don’t have the same passion for football or high school athletics up there that we have down here,” Hammond said. “Here it’s so passionate. It’s small town and everybody supports the team. For example, not to long ago we had a Clam Bake up here for the football team and a couple of hundred people showed up. In a few weeks we’re going to have one in Gilroy. Watch, the whole town, thousands of fans will show up and we’ll raise a ton of money for the football program. That right there tells you all you need to know about the difference.”
Hammond, who is a defensive man at heart, said he intends to operate a 3-4 defense, similar in many ways to the one that San Benito currently runs, with his “own set of tweaks” worked in. As for the offense, he expects to use the Fly or Wing-T, but also admitted that he tries to conform his offense to his personnel – so a lot will have to do with the players that step up into the leadership roles.
Hammond also expects to retain most of the current Mustangs staff he is comfortable with after working with them as recently as two seasons ago. That’s right, when Gilroy made the 2004 playoffs, despite being the head coach at Santa Clara, Hammond returned to help Gilroy up in the booth as a coach during both the Oak Grove and Independence playoff games.
Now he’ll return to the sidelines for good, as the Mustangs head man, and he couldn’t be more thrilled.
“I’ve returned with a newfound appreciation for our area. I’ve already shook a lot of hands and met a lot of people,” Hammond said. “This was a job I had to take. Something I had to do. It was a chance to go home and everyone from the athletic director to the principal to the booster club and the community itself has welcomed me with open arms.
“It was a no-brainer,” Hammond concluded. “This is a job I see myself staying in for a very long time.”
Richard Hammond
Personal Bio
Born: March 4, 1979
Age: 26
Marital Status: Single
Teacher: Mathmatics
City Raised: Hollister
Hammond’s Pigskin History
1994-97: Played for Hollister H.S
1997: Football walk-on at Cal-Poly
1998: Hollister Assistant Coach
2000-02: Hollister assistant coach
2003: GHS Defensive Coordinator
2004-05: Santa Clara Head Coach
Residence: South San Jose
