As Chris Harris takes over, Napa High looks to regain past success with bottom-up program approach in 2023
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Follow on X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
As a new season dawns again, yet another new head coach is in charge of the Napa football program. At this point, it seems like a narrative as there has been too much turnover to keep track of in the past few seasons.
However, this time it feels as if things are changing. On February 17th, Napa named 2004 alum Chris Harris as its new head football coach. Harris comes from one of the most prestigious programs in Folsom where he was the head freshman coach for the last five years. A 2004 Napa graduate, Harris also had two previous stints on the Napa staff from 2008-2012 and 2016-18.
“It’s really exciting,” Harris said in an interview on May 11th. “I’m excited for the opportunity to be able to come back and hopefully reignite that flame to get us back to being in a successful program again.”
So far, Harris has taken a genuine approach to building the program. He has invested at the freshman level as they will be the first class that he plans to have in his program for all four years. It’s part of building a program from the bottom up.
“I think anywhere you go, it’s important,” Harris said of rebuilding from the bottom upwards. “You don’t just build from the top down. It’s always the foundation that gets built first, so I think that we’ve done well. Not just myself but the coaches have done well in instilling that foundation and the importance and moral into our program because, at the end of the day, that’s what it takes. It takes everything. You can’t just do the top stuff.”
Last year, the Grizzlies went 2-8 overall, with a 0-6 mark in the Vine Valley Athletic League.
Napa is also lucky that they have two good options to start at the quarterback position. Last season, Yovanni Palma and Diego Montanez saw plenty of time at quarterback and wide receiver.
Palma has already connected with new offensive coordinator Chris Yepson as well.
“It’s really good,” Palma said of his connection with the new OC. “He connects with us very well, you know, he understands because he played football, and he knows alumni here, and it just helps a lot of those kinds of people around in your staff.”
The Grizzlies will also return Fisher MacDonald and Kevin Rico as part of their receiving corps. The senior group as a whole has bought into the new coaching staff as well.
“I feel like they brought in well,” Harris pointed out. “You probably have to ask them more. But it feels like everybody’s on point. Like they know exactly what we’re doing, what their expectations are.”
The players in the program have also put in the work to get better. This is something that starts in the spring with constant repetitions.
Napa uses summer to get better and give back to the community
The summer is always a busy time for football. This was no different for Napa as they did plenty of stuff to prepare for the new season.
One of the main things they did was host the first-ever Brock Bowers youth football and cheer camp at the end of June.
Besides giving back to the community, it was also a chance for many of the players to coach and learn what it’s like to coach.
“That’s really important to bring the community in,” Palma said of the camp. “I used to play for the Napa Valley Jets, the youth team, and that got shut down my seventh or eighth-grade year. Just seeing those big buys back then, was like ‘I want to come there, and I want to play there.’ Having the chance to be the face and giving that back to the other younger kids, it was a really big experience. It was really nice.”
Another thing the Grizzlies did over the summer was participate in local 7-on-7 with St. Helena, Wood-Vacaville, and Elite Public Schools of Vallejo. This was a good way to face some competition during the long summer. If anything, it’s also a chance to see where you’re at as well.
“It was really good having getting a taste of other opponents,” Palma said of the competition during the summer. “You always want to have competition out there and iron sharpens iron. So that was really good for us.”
A few tweaks to the schedule in 2023
One thing that is always important is the schedule. This season, there have been a few changes to the schedule for Napa.
The only notable change is the opener where Kennedy of Richmond is now. Speaking of the opener, it will be on August 25th at 7 pm at Napa Memorial Stadium. Following that, it will be a trip to Fremont to take on Irvinton on September 1st. Then, Montgomery of Santa Rosa will come to Napa on September 8th. Napa and Montgomery last met in 2015.
To end the non-league schedule, the Grizzlies will visit Novato on September 16th at 2 pm.
Last season, the Grizzlies beat Irvington and Novato in the non-league slate.
The VVAL schedule begins the next week with a trip to Justin-Siena on September 22nd. After that, Napa will have back-to-back home games against Casa Grande-Petaluma and Sonoma Valley on September 29th and October 6th.
Napa will then head out on the road to American Canyon on October 13th and Petaluma on October 20th.
The regular season will come to an end as it traditionally does on October 27th as Napa hosts Vintage in Big Game LII (52). This will be a Napa High home game.
Napa will have their bye week following Big Game, meaning they’ll play a game for ten consecutive weeks before getting a break.
Revamped coaching staff
One thing that has plenty of changes to it is the coaching staff as about half of the staff is new. This is something that you expect with a new coaching staff though.
The new head JV coach is Chris Cortese. Both come over from Vintage.
On top of that, the freshman staff is brand new. Back in charge of the freshman team is Jerry Harris along with Adam Croney, Warren Bowers, Joe Ruffino, Steve Hatton, Peter Green, Curtis Brandt, and Matt Geftakys.
“So we have a lot of people that are from the older program like when we were here before mixed with some new guys,” Harris said of the coaching staff dynamic. “Some coaches that aren’t new to the staff or the previous staff, so some completely new coaches. So we really have a good melting pot and mixture of coaches here, and I think it’s been a good transition.”
Nacho Franco is also leading the strength and conditioning program this season. He is the wrestling coach at Napa.
Besides all the changes to the staff, there are still a lot of coaches from last season’s staff as well.
