By Jondi Gumz
The Aptos Mariners have a new head football coach.
Zach Hewett, 39, a 2003 alumnus and junior varsity football coach for nine years, succeeds Randy Blankenship, who held the reins for 14 years.
Hewett chairs the physical education department, teaches weight training, and was head track and field coach for six years. As a student-athlete, his event was discus.
Hewett has a bachelor’s degree from Willamette University in Oregon, where he played football. He has a master’s in athletic administration from Ohio University.
“I left AHS to find my own way for a while, but the idea was always to return home,” Hewett explained. “I grew up here, went to AHS, my family and closest friends are here, I love this town and this community. But a primary force was to come back and learn from Coach Blankenship while I tried to make myself ready for this job when it did come up, whenever that would be. I got to spend ~200-250 days a year with him for 8-9 years, it was a tremendous period of learning and growth as a person, teacher, and coach.”
Hewett comes with kudos from Aptos High Principal Dr. Alison Hanks-Sloan, Athletics Director Travis Fox, and Blankenship, who rolled up 300 wins in his 50-year career.
Blankenship’s teams dominated locally, with eight League titles and four Central Coast Section championships, and the team’s field is named for Trevin Dilfer, son of NFL quarter Trent Dilfer, an Aptos alum.
But this year’s team struggled with a 1-5 record in the strongest division of the Pacific Coast Athletic League, and overall 2-8. Opponents include Salinas, the defending league champion, and two state champions, Palma and Soquel.
One of Hewett’s first tasks will be recruiting more players. Aptos had 110 students in football last fall and 21 seniors are graduating.
“It’s hard to replace so many seniors, but this is the way it goes,” Hewett said. “A strong football program should be losing ~20+ seniors a year if we’re doing our jobs and making the program a place where kids want to be. Recruiting the hallways always starts with building relationships and showing genuine interest in students as people first, potential athletes second.“
He added, “I’ve had a good track record of success in finding and recruiting talented football players in the past and I’ll keep that going as head coach. When I was the head track and field coach, recruiting the hallways was a core part of our strategy and roster building and it’s now just an innate thing that I do… having been the head track and field coach in the past, we’ve always had a strong relationship between our track and football programs and I’m always going to be committed to making sure that there’s no shortage of football players in our track program. But beyond that, we just want athletes and competitors and those come in all shapes and sizes. Point guards make great QBs, wrestlers are natural defensive players, so on and so forth.”
Aptos families should not expect a Randy Blankenship clone.
“We have lots of commonalities and similarities, but we’re also different people and that’s OK!” Hewett emphasized. “I got a front-row seat to watch one of the greatest in CA history do his thing and mentor me, but it’s a mistake to try to become him or act like him. When I took over the track program, it was a similar situation to Coach Dorfman where I got to learn from a legend, but I needed to take the lessons I’d learned and apply them my way. There was a lot about that program that resembled how Coach Dorfman would have done it, but it was also done in a way that was authentic to me. I want our team to look a lot like how they have for the last decade, playing fast, aggressive football that makes you think, ‘Wow, they’re playing hard…’”
Hewett is listed on LinkedIn.com as a real estate agent. He told Aptos Times he has priorities.
“I’m a practicing real estate agent with my girlfriend of 6+ years, Kori Williams, but during football season, I’m a teacher first, coach second, boyfriend third, real estate agent fourth. She’s a full-time agent at David Lyng and is absolutely fantastic. Give her a call, she’ll knock your socks off!”
He describes Williams as “a dynamite volleyball player for Aptos herself as well as playing at Sonoma State. Her father, Bob Williams, was the head basketball coach at UC Santa Barbara for 20 years and is a great source of advice about all things coaching-related.”
Hewett’s parents, Eileen and Gary, live in Felton and his older sister Sarah, who was a star softball and soccer player at AHS, lives in Boulder Creek with his nephew Blake.
At this time, Hewett is not a pet owner, but says, “I would love to have an Irish wolfhound one day. I’m a sucker for any and all goofy-looking dogs.”