{"id":469993,"date":"2026-09-20T12:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T12:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469993\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T12:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T12:56:12","slug":"high-school-coaches-respond-best-lesson-a-player-taught-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469993\/","title":{"rendered":"High school coaches respond: ‘Best lesson a player taught you?’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For months, current and former high school coaches have been asked to respond to my simple question:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the best lesson a player taught you?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hard to come up with an answer that many can\u2019t do it immediately. They\u2019re forced to think, which means the question is very good.<\/p>\n

Stories are always written about lessons learned by students in the classroom and on the field, but what do coaches, most of them teachers, learn from their students?<\/p>\n

Here are some answers.<\/p>\n

Weeks before he died last March, Venice football coach Angelo Gasca told me the story of a player who wanted to quit and what he learned. That player later became one of his assistant coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not accepting your resignation today,\u201d Gasca told him. \u201cYou need to go home and think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Venice <\/p>\n

Venice coach Angelo Gasca showing off the City Division I title trophy in 2021.<\/p>\n

(Cliff Kensinger)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he went home and thought about it and stayed on the team and was our starting center. He taught me the best thing we can teach is come to school and you never know what connections you\u2019ll make at the school you grew up at. He taught me there\u2019s more to coaching than winning games and scoring touchdowns. In our lives as teachers and coaches, we do learn from players. When we stop learning from our players, it\u2019s time to stop coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Edison football coach Dave White remembers suspending his team\u2019s best player before a trip to Hawaii for a team rule violation. He had to stay home even though his parents had paid money for the trip.<\/p>\n

\"Dave <\/p>\n

Dave White speaks to a crowd, including the football team, during the official naming of the Belcher White Strength Training Facility at Edison High School in 2022.<\/p>\n

(Scott Smeltzer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe taught me that I made the right decision and it was best for the team and in the long run best for him,\u201d White said. \u201cI was proud how he handled things. There are consequences for bad decisions. I really enjoyed and respected him more after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granada Hills girls volleyball coach Tom Harp said he had a player with a disability. She lost sight in an eye during an accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe taught me how to overcome a difficult situation with a positive attitude,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was a shining example of how to overcome adversity. It showed me my little problems aren\u2019t as bad as they seem if she can overcome that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lorenzo Hernandez, the football coach and athletic director at Whittier and former head football coach at Garfield, said a comment from a player made him realize to change tactics.<\/p>\n

\"Former <\/p>\n

Former Garfield coach Lorenzo Hernandez runs onto the field with his players and assistant coaches.<\/p>\n

(Hernandez family)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou grow up in a certain era and have to adapt,\u201d he said. \u201cThese kids want to enjoy themselves. They taught me to keep it as fun as possible. We worked on discipline. A kid said, \u2018That\u2019s great coach, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re having fun.\u2019 It made me take a step back. We have to understand it\u2019s a different era of athletes and they require different ways to handle things. That\u2019s helped me build better relationships. I\u2019ll meet you halfway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Crenshaw football coach Robert Garrett said he learned to talk to students about their personal lives to understand why they are behaving in certain ways. He discovered one of his players had nowhere to wash his clothes.<\/p>\n

\"Longtime <\/p>\n

Longtime Crenshaw football coach Robert Garrett talks to De\u2019Anthony Thomas, one of his best former players, in 2011.<\/p>\n

(Robert S. Helfman)<\/p>\n

\u201cSome don\u2019t have a stable household,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t learn that until you talk to them. I knew he was intelligent and studious but until I found out his hygiene wasn\u2019t good, I realized the environment he was up against. It wasn\u2019t until he shared with me what he was going through I offered assistance to wash his clothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t need tough love. He needed kid gloves. Every day I try to find at least one child I didn\u2019t know and have a personal conversation, \u2018What middle school he went to, where does he live, are his studies OK.\u2019 I try to learn the child before I learn the body. Adults never talk to kids. We just assume a kid is a certain way until you have a conversation and know their background and what they are going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Hart baseball coach Jim Ozella, retired and watching his grandson play sports, told the story of his former player, Jack Ralston, reaching the major leagues this year taught him about perseverance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants instant gratification,\u201d Ozella said. \u201cHere\u2019s a kid who didn\u2019t make the major leagues until he was 29. For us, he was an outstanding pitcher. We made it to the CIF final. Then he walked into UCLA, didn\u2019t pitch as a freshman or sophomore, pitched a little as junior, then boom as a senior. He got drafted. His lesson has been off the charts for me.<\/p>\n

\"Dodgers <\/p>\n

Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow with Hart coach Jim Ozella, who coached him in high school.<\/p>\n

(Eric Sondheimer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t expect results immediately. You\u2019re talented, put in all the work and effort. In this case, it didn\u2019t work. He kept plugging along. His lesson is everyone is different. His was keep plugging away and it will happen. I called him after he gave up a home run. He said, \u2018Today I woke up and it\u2019s a new day.\u2019 What a role model. Don\u2019t expect everything overnight. It takes time. Be patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Ozella quoted a famous line, \u201cThe day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall of Fame football coach Paul Knox had a situation early in his coaching days at Dorsey dealing with two brothers and figuring out what you\u2019re supposed to do when they\u2019re different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very close in age,\u201d he said. \u201cI learned by trying to coach them you can\u2019t coach everyone the same. Whatever I tried, one was very coachable and his younger brother all the things I tried never worked with him. We went back and forth.<\/p>\n

\"Dorsey <\/p>\n

Dorsey coach Paul Knox celebrates a miracle win in the 2001 City championship game at the Coliseum.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cI found out I had to find a whole other way to reach him. I learned you can say how you treat everyone the same, but you approach some kids differently. You never really know precisely who\u2019s listening to you and sometimes the satisfaction of being a teacher or mentor is delayed and you don\u2019t know until years later.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For months, current and former high school coaches have been asked to respond to my simple question: \u201cWhat\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4690,217,146578,1908,184941,21607,184942,3410,48,52,51,47,50,49,9442,4265,3044,4574,10384,427,5988],"class_list":["post-469993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-coach","tag-day","tag-difficult-situation","tag-football-coach","tag-good-lesson","tag-good-thing","tag-high-school-coach","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-player","tag-school","tag-story","tag-student","tag-teacher","tag-team","tag-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}