Five-time CCS champion coach returns to old stomping ground

VYTAS MAZEIKA | vmazeika@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
King’s Academy coach Pete Lavorato, who left Sacred Heart Prep in 2017 after 14 years, is back with undefeated team. 

The 67-year-old is in Year 3 at The King’s Academy in Sunnyvale, which not so long ago used to be a rival of SHP.

Friday night is the first time Lavorato will return to the sideline at his old stomping ground, except on the opposite sideline.

“I knew that eventually I would end up playing there at least one time,” Lavorato said. “So, I thought about it. What it’s going be like after being there for 14 years? I might even have had a couple of dreams about it.”

King’s Academy coach Pete Lavorato, who left Sacred Heart Prep in 2017 after 14 years, is back 
It’s the only night game of the season at SHP, a five-time Central Coast Section champion under Lavorato, who led the Gators to California Interscholastic Federation state finals in 2013 and 2015 and an undefeated season in 2014 that culminated with a 14-0 win over Bellarmine in the CCS’s Open Division final.

“I’m still sure that a little Sacred Heart blood runs through Pete’s veins,” said Frank Rodriguez, the assistant principal of athletics at SHP. “We had a lot of good years here, and no matter where your journey takes you next I still think that you always carry at least a little bit of what you had before.”

Early days
TKA and SHP didn’t have football teams prior to Y2K.

Familiar paths paved a year apart found both schools as members of the North Coast Section until 2008, able to skip treks to the East Bay upon joining the Peninsula Athletic League.

“There was no stadium or nothing and we were dressing in the old brick building in the basement, no showers,” said Lavorato, who took over the program at SHP prior to the 2003 season. “It’s come a long ways where Sacred Heart Prep is considered one of the premier small school programs, at least in the Central Coast Section.”

Lavorato spent 10 years as a safety in the Canadian Football League from 1975 to 1984 — four as a teammate of quarterback Warren Moon and five as a Grey Cup champion with the Edmonton Eskimos.

His first gig as a head coach came at Gilroy before moving back to Canada. Lavorato returned in 2003 to take the job at SHP, which established its junior varsity program a couple of years earlier before graduating to varsity.

“I loved every day I was there,” Lavorato said. “All 14 years of it.”

TKA vs. SHP
It’s unclear if the teams met in 2003.

But for the next 11 years, a rivalry evolved. Particularly after a controversial ending in 2006 — a 29-yard field goal in the final minute of a 29-28 loss by SHP on the road that was ruled to sail wide left.

“I remember that vividly,” said TKA athletic director Joe Maemone, who admits he thought the kick split the uprights.

“Everyone has their own version of the story,” Lavorato said. “Pretty much everyone realizes that the field goal was good. It was pure.”

The Gators, in a way, still hold a grudge. It was the first year either team was eligible for the NCS playoffs, with SHP left out of the picture after the field-goal mix-up.

“Everyone who was in attendance, and those who heard about it later, know that the outcome of the game wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, wasn’t equitable,” Rodriguez said. “And you feel for the kids, that they had earned a win that was taken away from them for all the wrong reasons.”

Two years later, in a battle for the PAL Ocean title, regulation finished in a tie. Lavorato gambled on the opening possession of overtime and Austin Koenig caught the eventual winning touchdown in a crowd.

“There were so many people there, it was crazy,” Lavorato said.

Legacy at SHP
Lavorato is adamant about the fact he didn’t build SHP into a CCS power by himself. He notes influences such as Rodriguez, Mike Ciardella, Tony Martinelli, Rich Dioli and Bill Campbell.

He points out Matt Moran as his top assistant, Mark Modeste as a genius on defense, then along came John Gilmore, a hall-of-famer at Burlingame.

“As the years went by, quite frankly, Sacred Heart Prep’s level of success and the dominance for being such a small school, we just admired them from a distance,” Maemone said. “We couldn’t compete with them any longer, so it’s really been great that we’re kind of back at that level and we’re just honored to able to play them.”

He added: “And, of course, Pete coming back on Friday night, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
SHP’s current coach Mark Grieb, an Arena Football League quarterback for the San Jose SaberCats, joined the staff after Menlo College canceled its program prior to the 2015 season.

“Mark Grieb has built upon Pete’s foundation here and certainly added his own presence to
the program,” Rodriguez said. “He’s the right guy to be coaching our team right now.”
He added: “It will be a bit odd seeing Pete not dressed in Cardinal and White, but that’s where we are.”

Renaissance in Sunnyvale
TKA lost its first five games in 2017. Any growing pains proved worthy, considering the Knights are currently undefeated — 11-2 last year, 7-0 so far this fall.

“There’s a transition, it was a change,” Maemone said. “Pete came in and it was different. You always have to give it time and we kept encouraging him, and lo and behold the kids just started to get it. We knew at that point that we were on to bigger and better things.”

Lavorato established the same fly-sweep concepts on offense at TKA that he developed at SHP, a stubborn approach that appears has yet to fail.

“I’m not a dictator,” Lavorato said. “But when I sit down and I talk with my assistant coaches, I say, ‘This is what I want to do on offense, this is what I want to do on defense, can you do something better?’ And if they can’t come up with anything, then that’s what we’re going to do. Because I figure if we’re going to lose, we’re going to do it my way.”

He added: “That’s basically what I’ve done by whole life.”

TKA’s 1-2 punch
Jayden Frazier, a 6-foot, 195-pound running back, was a sophomore when Lavorato took over the program.

“He always talked about turning us into men and getting us ready for the real world through football and through his program,” Frazier said. “He’s been a really good coaching kind of father figure for us.”

Limited at times due to blowouts, Frazier has piled up 659 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns, along with 13 catches for 216 yards and three TDs and a 93-yard kickoff return to the house..
“I like hitting instead of being hit,” Frazier said. “You’ve got to hit them before they hit you, that type of mentality.”

“He’s a powerful runner,” Lavorato said. “I wouldn’t want to hit him.”

Noah Short, a 6-foot, 180-pound junior, understands the value of Frazier on the gridiron.
“He’s a workhorse,” Short said. “He’s a downfield runner and it takes two or three guys to take him down.”

Seattle Seahawks rookie Ben Burr-Kirven, a two-way player on the 2014 CCS Open Division championship team for SHP, is a common comparison for Short — not in style, but in heart as a middle linebacker.

“He’s a different player than Ben,” Lavorato said. “But he loves the game like Ben, everything is football. The thing that reminds me about Ben is they just make everybody better, period. You can’t praise anybody better than that.”

“It’s definitely an honor to be compared to him,” said Short, who also plays basketball and runs track. “I’d like to say we’re definitely different players, but his passion for the game, it’s cool to be recognized as the same category.”

Friday Night Lights
SHP enjoys a six-game win streak in the series against TKA and hasn’t lost to its former NCS
foe since 2014, when the Gators went 13-0.

A five-year stretch with no game between the rivals will end Friday night in Atherton, when
the former architect returns to his old stomping ground. Lavorato’s message to his players?

“I told them on Saturday, this is not about me, this is about you,’” ‘Lavorato said. “You guys are 7-0. You guys are, I think, a team of destiny.”

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Sacred Heart Schools Atherton

Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton

150 Valparaiso Ave
Atherton, CA 94027
650 322 1866
Founded by the Society of the Sacred Heart, SHS is a Catholic, independent, co-ed day school for students in preschool through grade 12