Pioneer boys basketball coach is leaving for De Anza College
After 27 years as Pioneer's boys basketball coach, Joe Berticevich will have a change of scenery next season.
No, he isn't leaving his day job. He will continue to teach at the San Jose high school. But Berticevich, 52, will also spend part of his day driving up Hwy. 85 to De Anza College, where he has been named the fifth men's basketball coach in the 57-year history of the Cupertino school.
“I've always liked De Anza,” Berticevich said. “I am looking forward to get going.”
When Berticevich says he is starting from scratch, he means he is starting from scratch.
Because the program was temporarily suspended last season to undergo what the school website called “some changes,” there are zero returning players.
Berticevich will have a clean canvas from which to build a program that Jason Damjanovic led for 17 years before officially stepping down in August.
The team had an interim coach in 2022-23.
“It's kind of unique,” Berticevich said. “With the spring basketball class, you have your returning basketball players. I don't have any, so I am working on it. Hopefully, by a couple of weeks I'll have some guys to coach.”
Berticevich, a 1989 Prospect High graduate, was a guard at West Valley College in the early 1990s.
He went on to coach the froshsoph team and assist with the varsity at Los Gatos before taking over the varsity program at Pioneer more than a quarter century ago.
Berticevich also will step down as Pioneer's athletic director, a position he has held for 14 years.
Tough decisions, yes, but the opportunity for a new challenge has put some bounces in Berticevich's step.
“It's going to be weird seeing someone else on the sidelines,” Berticevich said about Pioneer. “We have a good group of kids coming back. The program's in a great place. Whoever takes it over is going to have a great group of kids to coach.”
Why leave? “Obviously, I played at that (college) level and really like this level,” Berticevich said. “From afar, I've had opportunities to coach at this level and I have turned `em down just because I know the time commitment and what it takes. I had two young kids. But now they're out of school. I have more time and this came up. It was a parttime position, so I could stay at Pioneer and teach my load there and leave in the afternoon.
“The big piece is the recruiting piece, You get to recruit players and build your team from that. I've never done that before and my time is running out on that.”
— Darren Sabedra ISAACS REMEMBERED FOR `BIG PERSONALITY' >> Randy Isaacs, a former Foothill basketball coach who led the Pleasanton school to a state championship game berth in 2000, has died. He was 59.
Isaacs suffered a heart attack last Saturday and died later that day.
Isaacs served as mentor to many of the East Bay Athletic League's current coaches and remained connected to the Pleasanton school even after he retired from coaching and teaching.
Isaacs played forward at Foothill under legendary Tri-Valley basketball coach Tom Hansen, Dougherty Valley coach Mike Hansen's dad. Known to his friends as “Big Red,” Isaacs earned a basketball scholarship at Chico State and played professionally in Australia before returning to his hometown to coach and teach at his alma mater.
Isaacs became head coach at Foothill in 1994, succeeding Hansen, who stepped down that year. Isaacs had his best run as the Falcons' coach in 2000.
That season, Foothill won the Division III North Coast Section championship and made it all the way to the D-III state title game, which the Falcons lost to Bishop Montgomery-Torrance.
Isaacs was also known around coaching circles for his slick communication skills with referees and coaches that often made fans in the gym laugh.
“Randy's personality on the court was the same as the one off it,” Mike Hansen said. “He is one of the funniest trash talkers I've ever been around. Whenever he would talk to referees, he would give them crap, but it was always funny. He was just a big personality.”
Isaacs is survived by his wife, Karen, and two daughters, Alyson and Haley.
— Nathan Canilao GRANADA HIRES NEW FOOTBALL COACH >> The Brandon Black era has begun at Granada.
The longtime Dublin head coach was hired to lead Granada after the Livermore school parted ways with Marc Moses in February.
“I live in the community, my family's here and my kids go to school in Livermore,” Black said. “It was a spot that was always attractive to me and when it opened up, it was a no-brainer for me.”
In five seasons at Dublin, Black was 25-21.
— Nathan Canilao
PITTSBURG, HERITAGE SET FOR BIG SERIES >> Pittsburg and Heritage will meet in a crucial twogame baseball series next week — Tuesday at Heritage, Thursday at Pittsburg — that could ultimately could decide which team wins the Bay Valley Athletic League championship.
Both are among the Bay Area News Group's Top 20 and undefeated in league play.
“We're ready for them,” Pittsburg sophomore JJ Robinson said after a victory over Oakland Tech last week. “We got a fire in our stomach to play them.”
— Nathan Canilao
PIEDMONT DEADLIFTER BREAKS RECORDS >> Piedmont sophomore Layth Haddawy rewrote the California state deadlift records for the 14-15 age group's 132-pound category last weekend.
At the USPA Spring Break competition in Oakland, Haddawy squatted 280 pounds, bench pressed 206, and deadlifted 371 for a combined total of 857 pounds. His father Chris said each of these marks set a new record.
— Joseph Dycus