The Wright Way: How this father-son sports duo is making an impact at Redwood
Sports is a year-long love affair for the Wright family at Redwood High in Visalia.
Michael Wright is the school’s athletic director and his son, Michael Wright II, is a teacher, football and wrestling coach.
Together, the Wrights have established a culture that embraces family to help fuel the Rangers for excellence on and off the field.
Under Wright’s leadership, the Rangers won 18 of the possible 22 East Yosemite League sports titles during the 2022-23 school year.
That trend has continued this fall.
Redwood captured five EYL crowns in October, claiming league championships in boys and girls water polo, volleyball, girls tennis and girls golf. The volleyball team also netted a historical victory on Tuesday, beating Culver City 3-1 to win the program’s first state playoff game under head coach Alana Montgomery.
“It’s phenomenal,” Wright said. “I tell everybody, ‘I have the best job in the world.’ I get to do sports all day and I’m at the best school around. Everyone says their school is the best but I truly feel like Redwood is the best school around, from the student body support, the parental support, the coaches, just everything about Redwood. It’s very magical.”
A sports lifer
Wright was born and raised in Iowa.
In the midwest, it was a given that if a child liked sports, he was going to play football in the fall, wrestle in the winter and run track in the spring.
A three-sport athlete, Wright enlisted in the Navy after graduation.
After serving in the military, he found his way to the Central Valley where his wife, Linda, called home.
Wright got his first head coaching job in wrestling at Hanford High in 1996 at just 26 years old. He spent eight seasons as the Bullpups wrestling coach before making a two-year run at Redwood in the mid-2000s. He also coached football.
From there, he caught on at Dinuba where he served as the head wrestling coach and varsity football assistant on Kevin Scharton’s staff.
Wright spent 15 years at Dinuba before taking on his current gig at Redwood in 2020.
Wright had ties to former Redwood Principal Matt Shin whom he crossed paths with during his son's youth football days.
“He kind of knew what I wanted to do, what my career goals were,” Wright said. “I got the opportunity. I just interviewed for it and I was fortunate enough to get the best job in Visalia.”
A few of Wright’s recent coaching hires have made an immediate impact.
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In his first year, he sought out former El Diamante and professional soccer standout Joey Chica to be the face of Redwood’s boys soccer program. Chica was just 24 years old when he was named the Rangers’ head coach.
And Chica delivered in just his second season, directing Redwood to its first Central Section championship in 12 years. During that 2021-22 season, the Rangers posted one of the best campaigns in school history with a 22-6-1 record. That 20-plus win season is the only time Redwood has won 20 games or more in a single season since at least 2006.
Wright’s laidback approach allows his coaches the freedom to run their programs as they see fit.
“I don’t see myself as the athletic director as anyone’s boss,” Wright said. “We’re co-workers. I don’t want to see myself in that way. Although the position leads itself to be the boss, sometimes, and you say how it’s going to be, but I see myself as a co-worker and partner with all these guys.”
Following Dad’s footsteps
Wright II never thought he would be a coach, much less a high school teacher.
When he graduated from Dinuba in 2015, he delayed his full-time enrollment at Sacramento State, gray-shirting to recover from surgery.
Needing a place to work out and stay in shape to play college football, Scharton opened up the Emperors’ facilities to Wright II to use with only one catch — he had to join him on the sidelines as a football coach on Friday nights.
The younger Wright agreed.
Dinuba went just 5-5 that season and missed the playoffs but Scharton knew back then Wright II had a bright future in education and coaching. So much so that he pulled his former player aside and pointed him in the direction of where to go.
“Scharton said, ‘Hey, you have a talent for coaching,’” Wright II said. “I do think that’s a thing that’s not always talked about but that is a thing. Some people do have that talent to reach people or help kids. We actually struggled that year but he saw something in me. He was the one who said, ‘You might want to think about changing your major and go in some form of teaching.’ Well, I said, ‘I ain’t going to be a math teacher because I struggled in math.’ So you narrow it down, and it was P.E. That was the route I took.”
What profession did Wright II originally want to enter?
“I thought I wanted to be an FBI agent,” Wright II said. “I thought I wanted to go and hunt America’s most wanted and maybe go take a bullet for the president one day. That’s kind of what I thought I was going to do.”
Today, Wright II is following the same path as his father — as an educator and coach in the state’s public school system.
Was that something the Wright family thought about?
“It was always our dream to work together,” Wright said. “We always wanted to be together. I never thought it would be in this role. We always thought we would be coaching together but it’s great to see your kid every day, to see his impact on the students at Redwood, it’s just phenomenal to watch, to watch him coach as a young man.”
Making an impact
Growing up, Wright II was always around his dad whether that was at home, in the wrestling room or out on the football field.
When the younger Wright made his way to high school in Dinuba, when classes were over, they linked up on the mat or the gridiron.
Wright II is one of the best running backs in Tulare County history.
In a Dinuba career that spanned four seasons, he rushed for 5,134 yards, the 11th-most in Tulare County history, and scored 85 touchdowns.
Wright II was a standout on the wrestling mat, too, as a four-time state qualifier. He even posted a 36-5 record as a senior in 2015.
Today, those accolades don’t mean much. He takes more pride in coaching and developing young men into adults while watching their individual and team success. Wright II actually began working at Redwood before his father arrived on campus.
As an assistant coach last winter, he helped lead the Rangers to the Central Section Division II boys wrestling championship.
“In wrestling, we get to enjoy this talk more because on a wrestling trip, you’re with the same kids,” Wright II said. “Sometimes, you’re driving seven, eight hours out of state. The kids sometimes would say, ‘You did XYZ as a wrestler. Your brother did XYZ.’ Coaching kids and seeing them achieve their goals, I can’t really even explain it. There’s no way I could put that into words the way that makes you feel compared to what you did. There’s nothing. I could have been an NFL Hall of Famer or a wrestler in the Hall of Fame. That wouldn’t have mattered but seeing kids like Dominick McCormack go on to play at Cal Poly. Noah Cortez who wrestled for me at Dinuba. I was basically with him 24/7, and he’s back wrestling at Cal State Bakersfield. That kind of thing is way more moving, seeing them get on the podium.”
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Redwood senior Isaak Mendoza can attest. Mendoza is a member of both the football and wrestling teams.
“He’s just an overall great guy,” Mendoza said. “Very easy to learn. A fun guy. He’s helped me a lot. Him explaining things from anything to asking him questions, he’s been a great help.”
A special father-son bond
Although the Wrights both work at Redwood, they don’t get to spend much father-son time together.
When they're on campus, it’s all business.
“It’s interesting because it’s not like when I was a kid and I got to be around him a lot,” Wright II said. “You would think, ‘Hey, you get to work with your dad. You must get to see him a lot.’ I don’t.”
The Wrights do share a special moment, though, before kickoff of every football game.
During the national anthem, the father and son stand next to each other on the sideline, embracing their love for family, community, country and sport.
It’s a Friday night tradition that started in high school at Dinuba.
“That’s our one moment,” Wright II said. “I mean it’s special. When coach Scharton got hired here, I came over with him, and then obviously, a couple of years later, we got my dad over. That’s kind of been, in a sense, one of our dreams, ‘OK. We all get to be together working towards the same goals of trying to get our teams and our kids to get as far as they could go.’”
What’s it like to work alongside dad?
“When we’re at school and I’m coaching, he’s my boss,” Wright II said. “I’ve sat in that chair, jokingly, probably, maybe, sometimes, I’ve been fired but I got rehired right away but I got fired. I know that he’s got to do his job. His job is to take care of sports at Redwood High School. That is something that everybody here is very passionate about. This school is very passionate from alumni, fans, students, whoever, but definitely the athletic director who wants to win and has won himself. It’s not coming from a place of ego or anything like that. It’s experience and doing it the correct way for a long time.”
How much does Wright enjoy watching his son in his profession?
“I love it,” Wright said. “We’re close. He’s my best buddy. I mean, to see him every day, it’s phenomenal. It’s cool to see him teach. It’s a little bit different when you see your kids become young adults so that’s really a great thing to see. To see him coach, interact with these kids, it’s just special.”
Scharton has known the Wright family for nearly two decades. Now, they’re basically all family.
“They bring everything they have,” Scharton said. “Whatever they do, they bring everything that they have — character and poise and encouraging kids.”
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: The Wright Way: How this father-son duo is making an impact at Redwood
