Sometimes in football, a program is ready-made for a new coach to come in and take over.
Leland won the Central Coast Section Division V championship in 2024, and Gunderson earned its first CCS appearance since 2016 while also claiming an undefeated Blossom Valley Athletic League West Valley Division championship this past fall.
But both programs were looking for new coaches after the season ended. Leland coach Kelly King Jr. resigned to look for a coaching position closer to his family in Milpitas, and Gunderson coach Jason Harrison made good on a plan to move to Arizona.
That left two desirable coaching openings in the South Bay. The men who filled them, Leland’s Anthony Herrera and Gunderson’s Felipe Avelar, are excited to put their own stamp on programs that are already proven winners.
“The kids are really bought in,” Herrera said. “I can tell what their formula was when they went to CCS. But I also know that Leland has a very rich football history. I actually played against Leland as a player when I was at Wilcox in the CCS playoffs. They have a lot of rich football history, and they have had a lot of support from the community in the past.
“What intrigued me about it was, not only was it a good program, not only did they have a rich history, but they had the desire to bring the program up and continue to rise. So for me, it wasn’t just the fact that they had come off of a championship. They are trying to take it to another level, which is the kind of personality and the kind of coach that I am.”
Herrera was a star running back at Wilcox who graduated in 2010. During his junior and senior seasons in 2008 and 2009, he rushed for a combined 4,431 yards and 51 touchdowns.
After struggling with injuries while playing at the junior college level with De Anza and Foothill College, he turned his attention to coaching, most recently instructing Foothill College’s linebackers from 2022-24.
Now, he’s looking to elevate Leland into the stratosphere that the program used to occupy during the days when it went toe-to-toe with powerhouse teams like Wilcox, which won the CCS Division II title last fall.
“That’s what we’re working to get to, to be able to become a real public school powerhouse and compete with those public schools and those WCAL teams,” Herrera said. “Build the program to get to that point. Not only me, but the staff, we know what we have at Leland. We know that in the community, the support that they get and the history they have, that is something that is more than a possibility for that program.”
Avelar, meanwhile, will have the challenge of fortifying Gunderson’s recent resurgence. Once a launching pad for players like NFL wide receiver James Jones and Harrison, who played running back at UCLA, Gunderson had fallen on hard times in the last decade.
Now, Harrison leaves Avelar with rising senior quarterback Andrew Fernandez, the reigning West Valley Division Junior of the Year, to lead a group that will move up to the Santa Teresa-Valley Division with a newfound taste for winning.
“I’m excited for the returning seniors,” Avelar said. “Especially excited for the quarterback play. In my 23 years of coaching, this is probably the most natural passer that I’ve coached.”
Avelar graduated from Silver Creek in 2000 and has since coached at Modesto, Pitman, Clovis North and Independence. Relocating from the Central Valley and bumping into Harrison turned out to lead to a fortuitous opportunity.
“I ran into coach Harrison toward the end of last season,” Avelar said. “I had just relocated back to San Jose from Clovis, and he asked me what my plan was, or if I was coaching, and my plan was to look for head coaching jobs in the spring. I interviewed and went through the process, and here we are.”
Now, he’s trying to put his own spin on Gunderson’s recent success, starting with installing his offensive system to supplement Fernandez’s established talents.
“He’s been working hard in the offseason,” Avelar said. “Running track at the moment and putting some good weight on. So I’m excited to install our RPO (Run-Pass Option) system with him and make him a dual-threat quarterback.”