Dougherty Valley has struggled to find consistent success on the football field, falling behind its neighboring programs in San Ramon. Since the program’s best performance in the 2008 season, the Wildcats have struggled to maintain a stable head coach, going through four different coaches in the past five years and managing to get one league win in the past decade.
California, San Ramon Valley and Monte Vista High School are all neighboring high schools to Dougherty Valley High School, yet the Wildcats rarely play those schools on the football field. All three of these high schools have built illustrious football programs, which separates those schools from DVHS, causing them to play in different leagues despite the school’s close proximity. The separation has cost the Wildcats a lot of valuable talent, with many of their players transferring to rival programs. This has left Dougherty Valley at the bottom of their league’s rankings for the past seven years and sparking constant search for change throughout the program.
“They know how to play football here in San Ramon. We are the only ones who haven’t figured it out, no reason why we can’t,” Head Coach Gwangee Pittman said.
As a longtime coach at schools across California and a former D1 football player, Pittman talked about how he’s looking forward to putting in the work and being successful during his first year at Dougherty Valley. He believes the program’s struggles over the years can be attributed to treating football as only a fall sport. To play high school football, athletes need to be committed to practicing as much as they can because there is always room for improvement.
“We are trying to change the way we approach football. Football doesn’t start in August, it starts in late January, and runs through,” Pittman said with a smile.
Pittman has placed an emphasis on creating a new identity of football at Dougherty Valley. Dougherty has established themselves as one of the best basketball and soccer programs in Northern California the past couple years, with both teams winning multiple NCS and CIF titles over the past five years, but still continues to struggle on adding men’s football to that list. The school plans to approach the sport differently this upcoming season, placing more emphasis on establishing a work ethic. If each player and coach in the program applies themselves to this plan, the Wildcats believe that this will eventually guide the way to success.
“With this coaching staff, we do everything with a purpose,” varsity running back senior William Walleshauser said. “The past couple years not everything had a purpose, but now everything has a lot of purpose and attention to detail.”
The Wildcats have won only four combined games over the past two seasons and have gone through a different head coach year for consecutive years. However, the team has had opportunities to show their potential. Just three years ago, the Wildcats went through a bright stretch with two winning seasons in a row. They showed glimpses of their rising football program, but then their program took a couple big hits. They went through a coaching change, and the loss of several key student athletes to California High.
“In the last couple of years that I’ve been here, a lot of people want to go to Cal High to play football, they don’t want to put in the work,” Walleshauser continued. “I just want to see more people coming out here, putting in the work and getting ready to change the program around and build a program here.”
Despite all the change Dougherty Valley has been through in the past few years, the program remains set on establishing a standard for everybody to be committed to. Pittman expresses that if anyone thinks they’re above the standard at Dougherty Valley, they’re welcome to leave.
“The standard is the standard for everybody,” Pittman said, highlighting that no one in the program will be held to anything less.
