GILROY — Brandon Boyd is the type of athlete that coaches dream of having. He’s hardworking, talented, modest and intelligent. He’s the kind of player who a team will rally around, but doesn’t think the team revolves around him. Week after week, he made him team, friends and family proud — especially his dad Brian Boyd, who got the rare opportunity to stand on the sidelines and soak it all in.
At first glance, you may not be able to tell the pair is related. But after spending some time with them, Brian’s likeness shines through in his son. Brian is tall and slim, with his peppered hair and beard where Brandon, on the other hand, is built like a running back — short and stocky — with his hair in a buzz cut and is clean shaven. They both sit on the couch of their Gilroy home with arms crossed, deep in thought about the questions being asked with the same smirk emerging on their lips and the same glint in the eyes when recalling memories from their time spent on the gridiron together.
Brandon, the middle of three boys, was the first to follow in his father’s football footsteps. He started at right tackle during his first year of Pop Warner nine years ago but admitted he was “terrible” at it. It turns out Brandon was destined to be a running back just like his father had been.
“I taught him everything I could teach him, but there’s some stuff that he does out there on the football field that you can’t teach,” Brian said. “He makes decisions really fast and I didn’t have that. I was fast and I was tall, I could out run people. I’d make one move and then out run people, he can do two or three and then out run people on top of it. Some of that stuff is unteachable.”
Brandon’s senior season was a prime example of his raw talent. He led the Monterey Bay League with 2,238 yards on 220 carries and 30 touchdowns, earning him the title of Offensive Player of the Year and First Team All-League honors. He helped the team to 5-5 record — it’s best since the 2009 season when the team went 9-2 — inadvertendly helping his father achieve his goal of helping restore Gilroy High football to its glory days.
But the relationship between the father-son, coach-player duo wasn’t always so easy.
Brian has been coaching his three boys since they showed an interest in sports. All three began by playing soccer, a sport Brian played until his sophomore year of high school when he fell in love with football. In fact, there was a point where he was coaching three seperated city teams at once, just so he could be involved in all three of his son’s teams.
From that young age, Brian knew Brandon was different — he was an athlete and a work horse. He moved Brandon up an age group in soccer in order to play with his older brother, Jordan — significantly cutting his workload down to just coaching two teams.
Then Brandon started football, playing in Pop Warner and falling as deeply in love with the sport as his dad had been. Brian, who played for San Jose City College in his heyday, said he never imagined coaching football, but when Brandon’s coach asked for his help he jumped at the opportunity.
After coaching his son for so long, the line between coach and father eventually became blurred.
“I have to put myself in check every once in awhile because the coaching never stops,” Brian said. “From the time we were on the football field at three o’clock to the time we came home, all the way in the car up Hecker Pass to here it never stopped — he was constantly being coached.”
That coach’s mentality seems to be yet another attribute that Brandon has inherted from his father. This season, Brian said, his son was instrumental in drafting plays on the chalkboard and in the playbook for the Mustangs.
First-year offensive coordinator Bobby Griffith leaned heavily on Brandon’s knowledge of Gilroy’s system — which he knew in and out after being immersed in it for three years. His efforts this season proved that, if he wants to, he could follow in his father’s footsteps once again and find himself coaching football one day.
“Sometimes I laugh at him, but most of the times I take him seriously,” Brandon said about his dad’s coaching methods. “Sometimes he gets under my skin and I just want to yell at him, but I know it’s not the right thing to do so I just bite my tounge. Most of the time I just listen to him. He’s good, he knows a lot. He’s made me what I am today.”
But for now, he just wants to play.
He hasn’t officially committed to any school just yet, but Brandon said he’s just waiting for the phone to ring and is keeping his head up until that day comes — just like his father taught him.
“(My dad taught me) just never give up,” Brandon said. “After the game, life is going to go on. — just keep going.”
Wherever he ends up next year, one thing is for certain — Brandon will not be at Gilroy High. That fact, however, Brian said has not hit him quite yet. He knows his son will be moving on at the end of the year, so right now Brian is just enjoying the time he has left with him.
“It hasn’t hit me it’s the end yet and I don’t know when it’s going to,” Brian said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be next year when I walk out there and he’s not there. I don’t know if it’s going to be graduation. …We want to be able to see him play. We don’t want to have to, after a game on Friday night, jump on a plane and fly across the country. So he’s looking at wanting to stay out here on the west somewhere.”
“(My dad taught me) just never give up. After the game, life is going to go on. — just keep going.”
