Together. Together. Together. | Issue 2025

Eight minutes before kickoff, a huddle forms around Mike Machado at the 20-yard line: the head football coach has a few final remarks for his team as they conclude their pregame warmups.
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“Together! Together! Together!” the players shout as they break the huddle. It’s what Valley Christian football players have shouted for three decades.

The Warriors sprint into the locker room for last-minute preparations. They’ll re-emerge under the lights as the sun sets on Skyway, and by night’s end, in beating Patterson High School 42-11 they have secured Machado’s 251st victory as a high school football coach.

Milestone win #250 came in late August against Wilcox, the opening night of Machado’s 28th season as Valley Christian’s head coach. Since 1998, Machado’s teams have won seven CCS championships, including a four-year run from 2002–2005 that gave Valley Christian its first section title and bragging rights over its WCAL rivals.

“Mike has a natural ability to connect,” says Pam Watson, who worked in the office of the VCS president for years and has known Machado for three decades. “He has immediate rapport with so many different people.” — Pam Watson, VCS Parent

Pictured Coach Machado (right) and (left) Andrew,  son of Rick and  Pam Watson, who has Down Syndrome. Rick also served as a member of the VCS Board, deepening the family’s connection to the school community.

By sunrise he is already in the quad, Machado is one of the first staff members to arrive on campus, coffee in hand, greeting teachers, security guards, and facilities staff alike. And to make sure his offensive linemen are getting to first period on time.

Fall mornings are chilly up on the hill, but Coach’s uniform is the same as always: the sleeves are short and the shoes are blue. The Philz coffee in his hand is for waking and warming, but really he’s mostly using the cup to salute passersby in the quad—Coach knows just about everyone he sees and he’s got a joke even for those he doesn’t.

“Mike has a natural ability to connect,” says Pam Watson, who worked in the office of the VCS president for years and has known Machado for three decades. “He has immediate rapport with so many different people.”

In addition to serving as head football coach, Machado is also the VCHS Dean of Students. In that role, he has built relationships with thousands of students, hundreds of faculty and staff members, and a handful of lucky Warriors who have known him as Coach, as Dean, and then as Mike the co-worker.

“I’ve known that I could always count on Mike’s consistency, his love for his players, and his commitment to the program,” says Heath Ferreira (’01), a former player of Machado’s and is now back on campus as a junior high teacher and coach on the freshman football staff. “He loves his job, he loves the kids, he is truly, wholly, honestly, one of the best human beings I have ever known.”

Ferreira often hears Machado’s whistle echo across campus, the same sharp call that has marked “every break and lunch for thirty years. One day it won’t be, and the campus will be less for its loss.”

It’s lunchtime, and the high schoolers have been unleashed from their classrooms, but there’s a huddle of students around the Dean near the lunch lines. All of them wondering: What jokes will Mr. Machado have for us today? What life advice can we gather from Coach’s “lunchtime court”? Last year he surprised the student body by singing at the school talent show. He gets buckets of ice water poured on him for charity and wears outlandish wigs on the daily announcements.

“He is literally a central part of our school,” says senior Troy Calupad, who is on the football team and also serves on ASB and as a student chaplain. “One of the things I appreciate most about Coach is how much he notices everyone, how he gets people involved. On the field, he’s always been so congratulatory even to the kids who might not be the obvious stars on a particular play.”

Calupad first met Machado over Zoom for his eighth-grade admissions interview; he recalls a lot of jokes and a lot of laughs (and ultimately an acceptance letter to VCS).

“He does a great job of making people feel comfortable,” Calupad says.

That ability has been tested over 28 years, perhaps most notably in the spring of 2005. JR Adams, a senior and star running back who was at the heart of that magical run of CCS championships, was killed in a hit-and-run accident while crossing a street in Mexico on spring break.

Tim Najar (’06) was a year younger than Adams, and called the latter’s death “traumatizing” for a program full of confident young men used to championship celebrations.

“Machado really had to lead us through that,” Najar recalls. “Those emotions carried over from spring into that next fall and we dedicated that next season to JR.”

Adams’ framed #3 jersey still hangs outside the locker room in the football stadium; players tap it before every home game. Twenty years after the accident, Machado and his staff have made sure that JR remains part of the football family. That number three hangs in the air every time a huddle breaks: Together. Together. Together.

“I’d call those months after JR died the lowest of the lows for us as coaches,” says Eric Scharrenberg, vice president and director of K-12 Athletics and physical education and longtime defensive coordinator on the football staff. “Guiding our program through that was some of the best work

Fresh off the resounding win over Patterson, a huddle of parents, players, coaches, and alumni gathers around Coach Machado on the field after the final whistle. Fans trickle down the bleachers to congratulate their sons, brothers, nephews, and friends, but many also reserve a handshake or a hug for the coach at the center of it all. He high-fives the cheerleaders, checks on an injured player, and thanks the volunteer members of the chain gang.

Unique among the postgame gaggle is Tim Najar, whose son Caleb is a senior on this year’s team, set to graduate as a Warrior football player 20 years after his dad did the same. When Najar’s son Caleb joined the program, Machado was stunned to see one of his old players now a football dad.

Although Caleb gravitated towards baseball, Tim encouraged him to try football, to be a part of the program that meant so much to him. To be under the tutelage of the coach who Tim calls “the perfect balance of a player’s coach who cares about his guys but holds them accountable.”

Caleb says he’s grateful he listened, describing Coach as “the chill old guy” who’s helped him build lasting friendships.

As the field empties, Machado lingers, his arm around Andrew Watson—a familiar, defining image of his coaching era.

When he coached at Saratoga, Machado worked in Special Education classrooms and had students from those classes as managers on his teams. It’s one of the many underdog communities that Machado cares deeply for; one of the things that stood out to VCHS leadership in his hiring process was, according to Scharrenberg, “the heart he has for the little guys, for the kids who don’t always get the acknowledgment or the treatment by our society that they deserve.”

Soon after he took the coaching job at VCHS, Machado met the Watsons: dad Rick, mom Pam, and son Andrew, who has Down Syndrome. Rick also served as a member of the VCS Board, deepening the family’s connection to the school community.

“It was love at first sight between Andrew and Mike,” laughs Pam. “Mike knew how to talk to Andrew, how to be with him.”

Andrew joined the football team as a manager and, over the years, became woven into the fabric of the program just like any player or coach. In 2007, Machado spearheaded the launch of Football Camp for the Stars, an opportunity for athletes with Down Syndrome to practice football fundamentals with the VCHS football players, compete against each other, and mingle with the NFL players and coaches who attend the camp at the Skyway Campus each summer.

AT A GLANCE: COACH MIKE MACHADO
Football Seasons at VCS: 29
Career Wins: 251+
CCS Championships: 7
CCS Final Appearances: 12
Semifinal Appearances: 19
Don Shula NFL High School Coach of the Year: 2019 Representing the 49ers
CCS Coach of the Year: 2002, 2019
National Down Syndrome Congress President’s Award: 2009
Football Camp for the Stars Founded: 2007

In 2009, Machado received the President’s Award from the National Down Syndrome Congress for his work with that community. It’s one of the many awards that share space in his overflowing office with framed pictures of alumni, newspaper clippings, and playbooks. But there’s only one photograph above the doorframe, right in Machado’s line-of-sight from the dean’s desk, him on the field, arm around Andrew’s shoulders.

The Watsons live out-of-state now, but they were in the Bay Area for an extended visit this fall and so of course Andrew was on the sidelines as much as possible. Machado and Scharrenberg took him to breakfast, where they teased and laughed and reminisced, the three longstanding pillars of the VCHS football program. Together, together, together.

Pam Watson says Machado gave players a connection to the special needs community, something few football programs can claim.

It’s late into Friday night when Coach Machado emerges from the locker room and strides slowly towards his car, one of the few still remaining in the VCHS parking lot. Skyway in September means there’s a chill in the evening air, but Coach’s sleeves are of course still short, his head down under his “VC” cap.

Despite all the accolades, there’s a humility to Machado, who is loath to talk about the 29 years, or the 251 wins, or the seven CCS rings. But he cannot stop the community around him from attesting to his steadfastness, to his inclusivity. They’ve gathered around the coach for three decades— at midfield, in the locker room, on the quad—because they see that that heart for the little guy really beats for all of Valley Christian.

Mike Machado is finally alone, as he leaves the stadium at the end of the night, but a huddle encircles him all the same, and no doubt always will. This fall marks Machado’s final season on the sidelines, but not his last chapter at Valley Christian. He’ll continue leading and mentoring students each day as VCHS Dean of Students, the same steady presence he’s always been.

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