coaches

The sunset of his NFL playing career came almost 30 years ago.

So what is Bucky Brooks doing before sunrise, unlocking the gate outside the Granada Hills High football field?

He’s getting in touch with his roots the way dozens of former NFL players are from coast to coast, teaching the game he loves to the latest generation.

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Granada Hills football coach Bucky Brooks, a former NFL player, talks about why he coaches high school football and why it attracts many former NFL players. (Sam Farmer / Los Angeles Times)

“There’s nothing like it,” said Brooks, 55, of coaching high school football. “The athletic part of you dies when we retire. There’s nothing that gives you that same feel of being the gladiator in the ring. But this is the closest thing. Even though you’re not playing, you live vicariously through their experiences.”

According to USA Today, there are 128 high school head coaches around the country who once played in the NFL. That includes Carson Palmer, the Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick from USC, who in his debut season led Santa Margarita to a CIF state Open Division championship and was named MaxPrep’s 2025 national coach of the year.

“I’m where I need to be,” said Palmer, whose son, Fletch, is a quarterback and junior on this season’s team. “I missed so much when I was playing because I was so involved in so much.”

After retiring in 2018, he contemplated going the route of a lot of former players and working NFL games as a color analyst.

“I almost signed a contract doing TV stuff,” said Palmer, whose daughter, Bries, is a freshman at the school. “I wouldn’t be around when my kids come by my office at lunchtime, or when somebody has a stomachache and needs to take a class period to take a nap on my couch. I love that.”

Santa Margarita will open the season Friday by playing host to Jones High of Orlando, Fla. — a team coached by former Atlanta Falcons defensive back Elijah Williams.

“The standard’s been set, the culture’s been built, and now you’ve just got to carry it on,” Palmer said.

“This class that we have right now has done a phenomenal job. We’re running more stuff than we were last year, just because it’s these kids’ second year in the program.” He added the receivers, in particular, are playing with confidence because of their detailed route work — precise depths, footwork, releases that are “NFL routes” as opposed to “seven-on-seven stuff.”

If you’re an up-and-coming quarterback, there has to be an extra layer of pressure and expectation if your father played the position at an elite level. Philip Rivers understands that. His son, Gunner, a four-star quarterback in the class of 2027 who plays for his dad at St. Michael Catholic High in Fairhope, Ala. The younger Rivers will be headed to North Carolina State, following in the sizable footsteps of his father.

Likewise, Philip Rivers followed his own dad, Steve, a legendary Alabama high school coach.

Granada Hills coach Bucky Brooks watches his players run drills during a recent practice.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“I grew up wanting to be my dad’s quarterback, and now I’m getting to coach my son and relive it all again 30 years later,” said Philip Rivers, who also has a younger son, Pete, on the team. “Everything goes too dang fast. There’s some long days throughout the years, but it all goes too fast. You wish you could slow it all down.”

All of this gives Philip a better understanding of his own father.

“My dad’s in the state Hall of Fame,” he said, “but he never won a state championship. His championship trophies were in his desk drawer, the letters players had written him over the years. We want them to be better men for having been in our football program. That’s the mission.”

Almost three years ago, former NFL quarterback Tim Hasselbeck was hired as varsity football coach at Ensworth High in Nashville. He gave up his job as primary game analyst for “ACC Primetime Football” in part to coach his son, Taylor, now a quarterback at Wyoming.

Granada Hills coach Bucky Brooks huddles with defensive players during a recent practice in preparation for the 2026 high school football season.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Coaching high school football became a family affair, with parents Don and Mary Beth selling their Boston house of 50 years and moving to Tennessee, and Don — the former NFL tight end who died last year — joining his son’s staff. Matt Hasselbeck, Tim’s brother and a former Super Bowl quarterback, came on board as well as Ensworth’s offensive coordinator.

“We all had coaches who made an incredible impact on our lives,” Matt said. “And we probably had coaches who had a negative impact as well. … I didn’t seek out coaching. I said I’d do a three-day clinic. I just don’t remember stopping.”

By Archie Manning’s count, about 30,000 high school players have been enrolled in the 30 years of the Manning Passing Academy in Thibodeaux, La. The weeklong camp focuses on quarterbacks and receivers, and college players from around the country serve as counselors, as do brothers Peyton, Eli and Cooper Manning.

“I tell Peyton and Eli, ‘Listen, when these kids get home, their granddaddy is going to ask them, ‘Did you meet Peyton and Eli?’” said Archie of his two NFL quarterback sons. “And I want them to say, ‘Yes.’ OK, so get your butt around to everyone. They try to get in front of every kid.

“The kids we deal with are just so eager and excited, and that’s what makes it so fun.”

Back at Granada Hills, where he has coached since 2019, Brooks is looking to instill in his players some of the lessons he learned from the all-star cast of NFL coaches he played for as a defensive back — among them Marv Levy, Mike Holmgren, Tony Dungy, Marty Schottenheimer and Jon Gruden.

“We all feel an obligation to give back,” Brooks said. “Your Pop Warner coach, your high school coach, your college coach. … I want to take those same lessons people gave me and give it to the next people.”

Granada Hills coach Bucky Brooks talks to his players before practice.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

That requires sacrifice. Brooks has worked as a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated and analyst for NFL Network. Now, he’s a commentator for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ TV Network, meaning he finishes a high school game and flies to where the Jaguars are playing.

Sometimes, that means hopping on a plane to London after coaching a Friday night game. His assistant coaches, mostly a group of his former Granada Hills players, have to pick up the slack sometimes with the subsequent practices early in the following week.

“It’s been a great leadership lesson for me,” Brooks said. “I’ve learned to delegate and let other people take over.”

Everyone, it seems, is getting an education.

This was not the first game where boos have been at the hydration break, and the wave of dislike for them among fans appears to be gathering momentum.

On Tuesday, during Norway’s match against Iraq in Boston, the pause in play was greeted by boos from the crowd, with the temperature a more than manageable 23C at the time.

It was goalless just before the break but Iraq conceded four minutes after play resumed, and went on to lose 4-1.

There were loud boos for the pause during Sweden’s 5-1 thrashing of Tunisia on Monday and Spain’s goalless draw with Cape Verde on the same day, with that game played in the air-conditioned Atlanta Stadium.

And after England’s win against Croatia, the first hydration break during the match between Ghana and Panama was also greeted by jeers.

The hydration breaks have effectively turned games into four quarters rather than two halves, a concern for some of those England supporters who booed the break.

“It is like the Americanisation of football here,” said one.

“It is turning the game into quarters and I don’t love it. I get why people were booing and I was one of them.”

But some supporters do think there are benefits to them.

“I think they are badly marketed,” said another fan.

“If they were not called a hydration break, and were called a relief break then everyone doesn’t miss a goal.

“I think we have to think about it in a new way, corporate [bodies] get what they want, we get what we want and everyone is happy.”

UCLA’s Megan Grant is just like every other college senior her age.

Sure, it might not seem like it from the outside looking in. After all, how can someone who has hit 89 home runs across her college career — one short of the Bruins’ record — and helped one of softball’s most dynamic offensive teams check off a list of new NCAA and program records relate to the other sociology majors in her classes at UCLA?

Grant disappears into her head sometimes, something she readily acknowledges. But her solution might not be as accessible to all the other “Twilight”-binging, video-game-loving UCLA students. She has coach Kelly Inouye-Perez keep her, the Division I home run queen, from getting caught up in the moment.

“She does a really great job with just keeping me neutral,” Grant said. “Sometimes I may get in a little crazy headspace, but she does a really great job helping me get out of those feelings that I’m stuck in, and she pulls me out and makes me realize, ‘Hey, as long as I can be who I am, that’s enough.’”

UCLA head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, left, confers with associate head coach Lisa Fernandez next to infielder Jordan Woolery during NCAA reigonal game on May 15.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Inouye-Perez and assistant coach Lisa Fernandez are some of the Bruins’ biggest keys to success as the team prepares for the start of the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. The Bruins will face Texas Tech at 4 p.m. PDT Sunday in a game airing on ESPN.

UCLA closed its super regional with a single-season home run record (200) and a record for WCWS appearances (34).

Grant is no stranger to the work necessary to see that level of success. But even in her rare bad at-bats and struggles, Inouye-Perez and Fernandez allow her the space to fail. After all, there are nine places in the lineup. One person alone isn’t indicative of UCLA’s wins or losses, Inouye-Perez says.

“We really focus on succeeding and learning how to fail, so they can just get to the next pitch,” Inouye-Perez said. “We talk about the ability to slow the game down, to take deep breaths, to be able to enjoy the moment. It’s not on any one Bruin.”

That mentality doesn’t exist in a void. Inouye-Perez and Fernandez worked in tandem to create the powerhouse team, which is in the midst of one of the best offensive seasons in D1 softball history.

Inouye-Perez is in her 20th year coaching the Bruins and is the only NCAA softball player to win a championship as a player and a coach. She led the 2010 and 2019 teams to those titles. Meanwhile, Fernandez, in her 28th year coaching at UCLA and her fourth as associate coach, has taken primary responsibility for hitting — one of the Bruins’ biggest keys to success. The team leads the nation in batting average (.385), RBIs per game (10.38) and on-base percentage (.496).

“Me and her, we’re workhorses,” Grant said of Fernandez. “We work all day after practice hours together, and it just means the world. You can tell that she loves the game and her little nuggets that she teaches me.”

The Bruins’ success in the batter’s box also has helped raise the tide of a team that could’ve fallen into many pitfalls. The team has only one main pitcher, Taylor Tinsley, who’s spent the most time in the circle in the NCAA tournament with 29-1/3 innings pitched. The Bruins are also young. Of the 21 players on the roster, only eight are seniors, redshirt juniors or juniors.

Seniors Jordan Woolery and Grant are one pace to break NCAA records, but the underclassmen aren’t far behind. Redshirt freshman Aleena Garcia set a single-game RBI record (7) when she hit two three-run homers in UCLA’s 14-4 win over Central Florida in the Super Regional.

Much like Inouye-Perez, Fernandez’s best attribute is her ability to be a sounding board for Grant.

“You get her enthusiasm too,” Grant said. “If you mess up, she’s always there to have your back. She celebrates your wins as well, and she gets very ecstatic about it. It almost makes me laugh, because it makes things so much more fun. She just brings that out of people.”

Even when teams lose to UCLA and Fernandez, it’s still a positive experience for some.

UCLA associate head coach Lisa Fernandez huddles near the mound with starting pitcher Taylor Tinsley (23) during the fifth inning of a comeback win over California Baptist. The Lancers scored 10 runs in the fifth, but Tinsley bounced back from outing.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Central Florida coach Cindy Ball-Malone considered Fernandez one of the best softball players ever, calling her the Michael Jordan of the sport. But what makes her truly impressive, Ball-Malone said, is that Fernandez is an even better coach.

“She’s just a winner,” Ball-Malone said. “I kind of just want to rub up on her or something to get that mojo because she’s got it. Her attention to detail, her belief in the smallest things, that’s why she is so good at what she does.”

It’s no wonder then why so many people, regardless of team affiliation, want to see UCLA’s coaches in person.

If you’re a part of the Bruins, you get to learn from people who have brought the school championships. And, if you’re trying to beat UCLA, there’s no better accomplishment than saying you beat Inouye-Perez and Fernandez’s record-breaking team.

“[Fernandez is] going to push you, and it might be uncomfortable, but dang it, you have no choice but to get better,” Ball-Malone said. “If you can get through her, you can get through anybody, and I’m going to learn from that so I can bring that to this program.”