New coach leads Palo Alto revival
Early into his first summer with the Palo Alto football team, head coach Nelson Gifford was approached by a senior player.
“Hey coach, how would you handle the split-back veer? Can you draw up the defense for that?”
Gifford didn’t flinch. He gave the answer, but also knew the kid was just messing with him. Sort of.
“It’s a tough crowd and in some ways, a weird place,” Gifford said. “Others can’t say that, but I can.”
Gifford knows the school’s kids because he was one. The 2000 Palo Alto grad knows that it’s often not “Yes, coach” or “No, coach,” but “Why coach?”
The 37-year-old and his new staff have come up with virtually all the right answers during a 9-1 turnaround season that has Vikings’ fans rekindling hope for a repeat of the 2010 team that won a CIF State Division I championship.
The third-seeded Vikings (9-1) host sixth-seed Los Gatos (6-4) at 7 p.m. Friday in a first-round Central Coast Section Open Division 1 game.
In the wake of the retirement of coach Earl Hansen — Gifford’s coach — Palo Alto had four straight losing seasons (2014-17) under Jake Halas and Danny Sullivan, going a combined 15-30.
Gifford, who was the runner-up for the job that Sullivan got in 2016, applied again and implemented a new spread attack and pushed all the same right buttons he did during a resurgent stint at Fremont-Sunnyvale.
He had back-to-back 6-4 seasons for the Firebirds after a 2-8 season before he got there. He loved his time at Fremont, a school with little football tradition, but Palo Alto was “my dream job.”
Gifford also knew he would have the chance to work with some highlevel talent, including quarterback Jackson Chryst, the younger brother of former Palo Alto and Stanford quarterback Keller Chryst.
Gifford, who had coaching stints at UC Davis, Cal, Laney College and Golden Valley-Merced, called the older Chryst “the most athletic high school football player I’ve ever coached against” — a group that includes Freedom-Oakley alum Joe Mixon, now a running back with the Cincinnati Bengals.
“I’ve seen a lot of levels,” he said. “I’ve won, I’ve lost and everything in between. I felt like it all gave me perspective coming into this job. It grounded me.”
This season, Gifford has a Chryst on his side — 6-foot-3, 205-pound Jackson (2,285 passing yards, 31 touchdowns, six interceptions), whose favorite target is Jamir Shepard.
Shepard (a 6-2, 190pound junior) is following in the footsteps of Palo Alto receiving greats Devante Adams (Green Bay’s No. 1 receiver) and KeeSean Johnson (who recently broke Adams’ Fresno State career receptions record) with perhaps the greatest pass-catching season in school history.
Shepard has 48 receptions for 1,074 yards and 19 touchdowns, including a three-catch, 205-yard, three-touchdown performance two weeks ago in a 35-10 win over Los Gatos.
“Two of the passes were behind the line of scrimmage,” Gifford said. “I mean the kid has great ball skills. He attacks the ball. I was surprised what a very sharp route runner he was. But what probably separates him is what he does after he catches the ball. He takes a slant or hitch, and he’s gone.”
Shepard also eyes the bigger picture — and is happy to share his observations.
At halftime of an early season game with two-time defending state champion McClymonds-Oakland, Shepard noted that the defense was completely keyed on him. “He said we needed to look for Paul (Thie) in the second half,” Gifford said.
Thie finished with five catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns as Palo Alto came from behind to win 29-20.
“How many star players would ask to be a decoy?” Gifford said. “That’s the kind of guy he is and how this team has rolled all season.”
Shepard and Thie (36 receptions, 680 yards, eight touchdowns) aren’t the only offensive threats. Senior running back Aiden Chang has rushed for 1,051 yards and 13 touchdowns.