KELSEYVILLE — Rob Ishihara doesn”t expect miracles as he prepares to enter his first season as the new head coach of the Kelseyville High School varsity football team, but he does want to bring his alma mater back into playoff contention as soon as possible.
A 1999 graduate of the school and former quarterback, Ishihara has climbed the coaching ladder rapidly at Kelseyville. He was a junior varsity assistant in 2007, became the JV head coach a year later and now finds himself in charge of the football program following the departure of former head coach Thad Owens, who is the new dean of students at Middletown High School.
“It”s always been something in the back of my mind,” Ishihara said when asked if he ever thought this day would come. “I”ve climbed the ladder quicker than I could have expected.”
Ishihara, 29, a member of the foreclosure buyer agents group with CPS Country Air Properties in Lakeport, earned a bachelor of arts in business administration at St. Mary”s College in Moraga after graduating from Kelseyville. He has been employed with CPS Country Air since January of 2005.
He”s not the first member of his family to coach football in Lake County. His father, Randy, was a varsity assistant at Lower Lake High School under former head coach Gordon Sadler in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Ishihara will also serve as Kelseyville”s offensive coordinator and the offense he”ll be running is the Delaware Wing-T.
“It”ll have a new look,” Ishihara said. “We”ll run a little shotgun and have more balance (between the running and passing games), which is something we need. We don”t want to see 10 players lining up in the box.”
He inherits a varsity program that went 8-21-1 in three seasons under Owens, the best year in that stretch being a 4-5-1 mark in 2008. Last year”s squad finished a disappointing 3-7 but does return two All-Leaguers in linebacker Nick Rodrigues and defensive end Mike Allen.
“I think we”ll have a pretty good nucleus on the varsity team,” Ishihara said of Rodrigues, Allen, Chris Augon, Geno Poloni and Mike Davis.
Augon, a quarterback, is a transfer student who played football at Kelseyville his freshman season; Poloni is a halfback moving up from the JV squad; and Davis, a wingback with quarterback experience, missed most of last season with an injury.
Kelseyville”s coaching staff will have several familiar faces and some new ones. Varsity assistants Lou Poloni and Ted Rodrigues are returning and Greg Rohner, Paul Pruett and Nick Veenstra, members of Ishihara”s JV staff last season, are moving up to the varsity. The team”s new defensive coordinator is Bob Salini, who spent last season coaching at Alhambra High School in Martinez. He”ll also serve as line coach.
Though it”s way too early to predict where the Knights will end up in the North Central League I North standings in 2010, Ishihara said he wants to create and sustain an environment similar to the one he experienced while playing at Kelseyville in the late 1990s under former head coach Stan Weiper ? a winning one.
“I want to get us back to playing better Kelseyville football, the kind of football we played when I was there. It”s nothing against Thad, but I think we need to do a better job of competing,” Ishihara said.
Ishihara certainly knows about winning football at Kelseyville. During his three seasons as starting quarterback for the then Kelseyville Indians (1996-98), he passed for 3,125 yards, including back-to-back 1,000-yard-plus seasons in 1998 (1,302) and ”97 (1,034), and helped the team reach the North Coast Section playoffs in both his junior and senior seasons. Kelseyville was 23-9 overall in his three years behind center and also won a league title (going undefeated in the NCL I in 1997).
By comparison, the Knights passed for just 267 yards and one TD last season and only 1,079 yards and eight TDs overall the last three years combined under Owens.
