Coach Evan Yabu brings new-world football focus to old-school Notre Dame High

Seeking only its third football coach in 43 years, venerable, staid Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High called an audible in December.

Instead of making the hiring equivalent of a plunge between the tackles, Knights athletic director Alec Moss went deep.

He went young. He went bold.

With the blessing of an advisory committee of administrators, faculty, parents and alumni, Moss hired Evan Yabu, architect of a stunning turnaround at his alma mater, Thousand Oaks High, yet someone outside the proud, loyal and sometimes hidebound Notre Dame tribe.

Moss became sold on Yabu during an interview over dinner.

“It lasted 3½ hours and felt like 20 minutes,” Moss said. “It was free-flowing with such great information going back and forth. His passion for football, for life and for developing young men was so evident.

“Obviously he knows Xs and O's, but does this person want the challenges? Can he fight through roadblocks? We believe he can and we are in it for the long haul with Evan.”

(Disclaimer: I’ve known Yabu, 33, since he played on a youth football team with my son in 2003. He also played on a travel baseball team I coached, and in 2013 when he returned home from college, I handed him his first coaching gig — a Little League baseball team of 14-year-olds.)

Yabu began coaching football as an assistant at Thousand Oaks — where he’d been most valuable player as a senior in 2007 — then at Moorpark College and Camarillo High before becoming thecoach at Thousand Oaks in January 2020, two months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

The Lancers program was in shambles, having lost its previous 25 games. In its first game under Yabu, Thousand Oaks defeated crosstown rival Newbury Park with a last-minute goal-line stand.

Less than two years later, the turnaround was complete. Thousand Oaks went 10-0 during the regular season for the first time in school history and won its first league title in 21 years before falling in the first round of the Southern Section playoffs.

An even 100 new head football coaching jobs have come open this offseason at Southern California high schools, according to Chris Fore, who chronicles such things. Yabu said Notre Dame is the only one he would have considered.

Since accepting the offer while on his honeymoon in France, Yabu spends all day on the Sherman Oaks campus. He supervises early-morning weight training along with longtime Knights strength and conditioning coach Nick Garcia. He meets with players, is visible and available during lunch period and at basketball games, and hosts college coaches inquiring about Notre Dame’s talent — UCLA assistant Jerry Neuheisel spent an hour in Yabu’s office recently, the two cordially discussing a wide range of football-related topics.

Afternoons are often spent with the track team, which is coached by Yabu’s predecessor Joe McNab, who was the football coach the last three years and an assistant under legendary coach Kevin Rooney for 40 years before that.

Except that Yabu isn’t coaching track, he’s running alongside athletes. At 5 feet 8 and 168 pounds, in terrific physical condition and sporting a chonmage hair bun that celebrates the Japanese heritage on his father’s side, he could easily be mistaken from a distance for an elite teenage athlete.

Yabu already won over McNab, the easygoing counterpoint to Rooney’s buttoned-down, unwavering intensity while leading Notre Dame to 316 victories, four Southern Section titles and 16 league titles since 1981.

“It’s a change, that’s for sure,” McNab said. “Change can be good. When Kevin was hired, people here were up in arms because he was from St. Francis. People thought we were horrible. People hated us. So people should give Evan a chance. He’s immersing himself into Notre Dame."

Yabu expresses reverence for the school's adherence to Catholic Holy Cross traditions, starting with the goal of educating hearts and minds. He met with Rooney, who is retired, and plans to spend time with Notre Dame President and Chief Executive Sam Lagana, who also is president of the John Wooden Award and is public address announcer at Rams games.

Yet make no mistake, Yabu already is introducing novel teaching methods and assembling a mostly young, innovative staff of assistants from outside the Notre Dame orbit.

“We focus a lot on spiritual health, the emotional quotient, proper rest, diet and nutrition,” Yabu said. “We’ll have every player talk in front of the entire team about something they are uncomfortable talking about — no football. It fosters speaking openly and listening with intent.”

Before games, the Knights will meditate and clear their minds through breathing.

“They’ll take that skill and reference it during games,” Yabu said. “When they encounter adversity, step back, take a breath, and we’re ready to go.”

Yabu added to his staff Matthew Koman, a Team USA handball player who was director of football at the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks and whose biography says he’s “certified as a Holistic Lifestyle Practitioner, Peacemaker, Strength and Conditioning and Sports Performance Coach. His mission is to unite all people he encounters with peace and love.”

Not all changes are touchy-feely. Notre Dame players will wear GPS trackers during practice to quantify hustle and let coaches know when players are dragging and need a break or when they need to be pushed to maximum effort.

Notre Dame competes in the Mission League, arguably the toughest in California besides the Trinity League. Composed only of private schools, the league is notorious for players transferring in and out. Yabu possesses a deep knowledge of the Southland football landscape, making it unlikely that he’ll be fleeced when it comes to roster construction.

Several Mission League teams brought in new quarterbacks for 2023. Wyatt Becker, a sophomore starter at Notre Dame last season, transferred to Chatsworth Sierra Canyon days after Yabu was hired, a seeming setback for a new coach. Three weeks later, however, an equally prized quarterback, Steele Pizzella, transferred to Notre Dame from Simi Valley.

Another unconventional staff addition is director of technology and social media Ed Hill, 63, who also will serve as junior varsity offensive line coach. Hill, whose son Rob Hill is the Dodgers' director of minor league pitching, was on Yabu’s staff at Thousand Oaks (which should remain strong after hiring former longtime Cal Lutheran University coach Ben McEnroe to replace Yabu).

“Evan is a special coach; he has the 'it' factor,” Hill said. “He knows technology. He gets in coaching mode and it’s a beautiful thing to see. He’s super focused, super efficient and he runs everywhere on the field.”

Notre Dame isn’t Yabu’s first unfamiliar landscape. He played a year of professional football in Germany after graduating from Lane College, a historically Black school in Jackson, Tenn.

Despite being one of only three nonkickers on the roster who wasn't Black, Yabu became a team captain, started at slot receiver and also served as player-coach on the baseball team.

“I was definitely the only person on the team with Asian blood,” he said. “Lane was the most impactful experience I've had. I learned to listen to people, to empathize and attempt to understand people that have had a different life than me.”

How does that translate? To Yabu, it means representing every player.

“Coaches make a mistake when they only take interest in the really good players,” he said. “Most guys aren’t going to play college sports. This is it. They are still having a life experience. I try to form deep relationships with the guys who don’t play at all. It’s important.”

Yabu and Moss, the athletic director, said they knew several players contemplated following Becker out the door in January. Notre Dame was 9-18 the last three seasons and football currently ranks a distant third among major sports on campus: The boys’ basketball team won the state Division 1 championship in March and the baseball team is 23-2 and ranked No. 1 by The Times.

Can Yabu restore Notre Dame's winning culture the way he did at Thousand Oaks? Spring football begins in a week, he and his wife Muirjani will have their first child in June, and a challenging schedule awaits in the fall. The Mission League sets a high bar.

His varsity staff includes defensive coordinator Eddy McGilvra, who coached at College of the Canyons and trains NFL defensive linemen; offensive coordinator Jake Constantine, a star quarterback at Rice, Weber State, Ventura College and Camarillo High; receivers coach Richard Mullaney, who played at Alabama, Oregon State and the Alliance of American Football; longtime Notre Dame teacher and linebackers coach Mike Curiel; former Harvard-Westlake assistant D.J. Stephens; and former Oak Park assistant Taylor Espinoza.

Denver Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton, another Thousand Oaks product, is Yabu’s close friend and helped develop Notre Dame’s playbook this winter. Last fall, when the Broncos played the Chargers at SoFi Stadium, Yabu took the entire Thousand Oaks team to the game. Singleton made 19 solo tackles — second-most in a single game in NFL history.

"The kids were fired up because Alex had been to tons of our practices and team meetings," Yabu said. "He's genuinely interested in knowing our players as people."

That appears to be Yabu's priority as well. If winning correlates with bonding, Notre Dame football might rebound the way their new coach bounces around the field: rapidly.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.