Kevin Swift: From So Cal Surf to Gold Beach

The Friday Night Life

#066. Like a lot of football coaches (myself included), breaking film down at the age of 10 with his father, a high school science teacher and football coach for 52 years, was the inspiration for Coach Kevin Swift to get into coaching. He attended Servite High School in Anaheim, California. At Servite, he was coached and mentored by some of the finest coaches around. All would move onto great success at the collegiate level from University of Washington, to University of Cincinnati, and to Chapman University.
From Servite he would go on to play collegiately at FCS University of Northern Iowa and DIII University of Redlands for legendary small college coach Frank Serrao. Upon graduating, he became the secondary coach for DIII Claremont McKenna College and worked under highly respected John Zinda. After 2 years with the Stags, he accepted the Defensive Coordinator position at University of Redlands. He was the Bulldogs’ DC for 2 years and lead them to 2 consecutive years of being a top 5 DIII Defense nationally.
He returned to the football sidelines of Orange County at Fullerton Union High School. Over the next six years he moved from school to school long term subbing and fixing or creating top notch defensives in the highly competitive southern California large high school arena. He had a chance to rub elbows and match wits with some of the games finest coaches from Bruce Rollinson at Mater Dei to Bob Johnson at El Toro and presently Mission Viejo. Finally after 10 years of experience at a variety of schools he thought he was ready to become a head coach. About this same time his new wife were interested in getting more rural, like Orange County once was. These two desires would lead them from a school of 3,000 in southern California to a small school of 300 on the southern Oregon coast.
In close to 30 years of coaching he has come to realize that this great game allows me the tools and teaching opportunities to create not necessarily great football players but great men and teammates. This philosophy and attitude to create great men, great husbands, great fathers, great teammates, and great community leaders is what has allowed us to be the football successes we are today.