The call came last Tuesday at about 10:15 p.m., just a week after C.J. Anderson had accepted an offer to return to his high school alma mater as its offensive coordinator. This call brought more promising job prospects: ace a pair of interviews, and the former Bethel High-Vallejo star could be the next head coach at Danville’s Monte Vista.
After an initial screening over Zoom, Anderson went before a panel of school officials the next morning.
“An hour later, I got the job,” said the seven-year NFL veteran, who retired after the 2019 season and returned to the Bay Area to pursue a coaching career. On Tuesday evening, Monte Vista named Anderson its newest head football coach.
Anderson, who attended Laney College in Oakland before transferring to Cal, said he set his sights on coaching toward the end of his NFL career, when he began to mentor younger running backs such as Christian McCaffrey and Todd Gurley. After going undrafted out of Cal, Anderson rushed for 3,497 yards over seven seasons and played in three Super Bowls and a Pro Bowl.
Anderson said he received four calls from teams asking him to play last season, but instead he opted to return to Cal as a graduate assistant to begin his coaching career.
Anderson said he worked closely at Cal with offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave, whom he played for in Denver, and running backs coach Aristotle Thompson while learning the other side of the ball from defensive-minded head coach Justin Wilcox, defensive coordinator Peter Sirmon and Marcel Yates, who recently joined Oregon as the defensive backs coach.
His favorite aspect of the job, though, he said, was building the relationships with high school players he helped recruit to Cal.
Now, Anderson will be coaching some of the players he was trying to bring to Berkeley — sometimes from the opposite sideline.
“It’ll be interesting. … I don’t think it changes (the relationship) that much,” Anderson said. “Guys like Zeke Berry and (Brodie) Tagaloa over at De La Salle, even Jack (Endries) — I was talking to Jack for four or five months. Now I’m gonna coach him … Having those relationships, I think it’s always good. You get to know the player best when you recruit him because you’re being honest.”
On the field, Anderson was hired to turn around a Monte Vista program that finished without a win against one of the Bay Area’s toughest schedules this past spring.
Off of it, however, he said he hopes to help any local player navigate the ultracompetitive recruiting process.
“Of course we want to win. We’ve got big plans. We want to put banners up,” Anderson said. “But whether you’re at Cal High, San Ramon Valley, De La Salle, if you’re getting recruited at the next level and want some information, I’m a guy who can give you that information to try to lead you in the right direction.”
Before Anderson takes the sideline for the first time at Monte Vista, he’ll reunite with Peyton Manning and some of his closest former NFL teammates for Manning’s Hall of Fame enshrinement this summer: Manning, Demaryius Thomas, TJ Ward.
“Just a bunch of smart teammates that I’ve had, I hope to talk about their experiences with different coaches,”
Ward, a graduate of De La Salle, will understand what the Monte Vista job means to a Bay Area native.
“He played Monte Vista, how the program was,” Anderson said. “He gets it.”
Since 2004, the Mustangs have posted winning records in all but four seasons. They had not captured an East Bay Athletic League crown since former coach Craig Bergman’s final season in 2016, though. Most recently, the Mustangs lost to De La Salle in the 2019 NCS semifinals.
Anderson name-dropped a few more influences he hopes to draw upon.
Champ Bailey. Aaron Donald. Aqib Talib. Von Miller.
Gary Kubiak. Tony Dungy, Herm Edwards. John Elway. Les Snead.
Even executives at tech companies whose advisory boards Anderson said he sits on.
Anderson said he hopes to draw on those connections to build back the Monte Vista program, but the ups and downs of a playing career that took him from going undrafted to playing in the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl may be more valuable.
“I got a chance to play this game at a high level and have success at a high level, but I came up doing it the long way,” Anderson said. “I went to JC. I remember when I was ninth on the depth chart at Cal. I remember crying on draft day when I wasn’t called at all. … There’s a lot of coaches who are a little older, who have walked through (their players’) shoes before but in a different era. But I played in my era and their era. I just finished playing the game.
“The biggest thing people ask is can you teach NFL thinking at the high school level. It’s the way you talk to kids. I do believe it can happen.”
NOTE
- Monte Vista first approached Foothill assistant coach John Millard about the opening, but Millard turned down the offer.
