Fifteen years since his last high school coaching job, Floyd Burnsed takes on a new challenge at Acalanes
Story by MIKE WOOD | Photos by PHILLIP WALTON
A strong hint of a Florida drawl remains when Floyd Burnsed speaks. Though he’s lived in the Bay Area for three and a half decades, his calm speaking style is one of the many constants associated with the longtime coach.
Winning football games is another. So is a knack for developing quarterbacks for the college level.
Back in the high school game at Acalanes High-Lafayette this season, Burnsed, 69, is again plying his trade on the sidelines, having developed a series of consistent winners at Miramonte-Orinda from 1982-2001. He’s eager for the challenge.
“Coaching does keep you young,” said Burnsed, whose return provided one of the more impressive and stunning offseason Bay Area hires.
Things fell into place quickly. The Dons job opened after after previous coach Mike Ivankovich retired after the 2015 season. Burnsed retired in May as a kinesiology and physical education instructor at Solano Community College-Fairfield.
Burnsed had been at Solano since the 2002 season, but the college dropped football as part of budget cuts in March 2012. Efforts to revive the programs were unsuccessful, and he had the itch to return to the sidelines. “I had no intention on being retired,” he said.
Burnsed said he discussed the Acalanes opportunity with his wife, Carolyn. “We decided it was fun when we were involved with high school football, so I took the job.”
He had left the high school ranks in late 2001, capping his 20-year run at Miramonte by coaching the Matadors to their second 13-0 season during his run, their fifth NCS title season under his guidance and fourth in five years. It was time for a new challenge, he said, which he found at Solano.
Given the number of players Burnsed has coached over the years, it’s not surprising to see things come full circle. Three of Burnsed’s assistants are former players of his: running backs coach Bryce Hawthorne from Solano, quarterback coach Peter Hess from Miramonte, and defensive backs coach Mark Vicencio, a wide receiver on Burnsed’s first Matadors NCS championship team in 1983, a run that included a 14-7 opening-round win over De La Salle. Former Cal standout David Ortega is the Acalanes defensive coordinator.
At Miramonte, which made the NCS playoffs each of Burnsed’s last 10 years at the school, his teams featured big linemen, sometimes in the 6-foot-6, 285-pound range, and deep rosters, typically numbering in the 70s.
“That’s what we want to build here, said Burnsed, whose current team has 44 players. “That’s not something that’s going to be done in a few months. But I think if people see the way we play football, the schemes we run and that we play fun and exciting football, we can build on that.”
So far the building process at Acalanes has yielded wins over Alhambra-Martinez and Skyline-Oakland, followed by road losses to Heritage-Brentwood and 2015 NCS Division III finalist Analy-Sebastopol.
It doesn’t get easier. The Dons, who were 4-8 a year ago, find themselves in the new Diablo Athletic League’s Valley Conference — the steeper of the DAL’s two divisions — with returning state finalists Clayton Valley Charter-Concord and Campolindo-Moraga, and yes, Miramonte.
“Our schedule doesn’t do us any favors,” Burnsed remarked.
Burnsed, whose coaching career began with high school assistant jobs at Russellville, Kentucky, and in Houston, started his Bay Area run in 1981 as an assistant to Tim Galli at Antioch. A year later, he took the Miramonte job.
Quarterback success is what’s associated most often with Burnsed. Including Ivy Leaguers, 13 of his Miramonte quarterbacks went on to play at the NCAA Division I level. That string began in 1984 with John Andrews, who went to Yale. Others followed, including Mark Guillon (Miami, then Alabama), Drew Bennett (UCLA) and Ken Dorsey (Miami).
Certainly Burnsed is proud to see Dorsey, who spent three of his six NFL seasons with the 49ers, making an impact of his own on the coaching side, as the quarterbacks coach for the Carolina Panthers and arguably the game’s best at that position, Cam Newton.
“(Dorsey) is such a great guy, very smart,” Burnsed said. “If he wants, I think he has the skills to one day to become a head coach in the NFL.”
Right now, making Burnsed’s transition back to high school coaching easier is having a solid leader at quarterback: junior Robby Rowell. Through four games, Rowell has completed 58 percent of his passes for 1,318 yards and 12 touchdowns. The Dons feature three different receivers — Aidan Macnamara, Matt Burns and Brian Merken — with at least 300 yards receiving. Merken leads the team with 34 catches for 402 yards four trips to the end zone.
Burnsed points to Rowell’s leadership and smarts. “It’s a perfect fit for the situation.”
MATADORS MASTER
Floyd Burnsed is back in the high school coaching ranks this fall, guiding Acalanes-Lafayette. Here is a glance at his run from 1982-2001 at Miramonte-Orinda:
RECORD: 154-62-2 in 20 seasons
NCS TITLES: 5 (1983, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001; team was 13-0 in ’98 and ’01)
NCS PLAYOFF APPEARANCES: 10 consecutive (1992-2001), 13 total
DIVISION-I QUARTERBACKS: 13