Trojan opponents will be double-teamed by coaches

When Petaluma High basketball players talk about double teaming the opposition, they mean with their coaches.

Rick Krist and Bob Pawlan have been named co-coaches to replace Sean Payne as head of Petaluma’s basketball program. Payne resigned earlier this fall to devote more time to his family.

Officially, Krist will be the head coach, dealing with the administrative duties. Pawlan will be co-coach. Unofficially, the two have agreed that Krist will concentrate on the defense, while Pawlan will focus on the offense.

Both coaches are on-campus coaches. Krist is head of the Petaluma athletic department. Pawlan teaches science and marine biology.

Krist is a longtime Petaluma assistant football coach, and does not want to give up that sport.

“I’ve wanted to get back into basketball for a long time,” he says. “My problem was that I needed to have someone help during the football season. I needed someone to take the brunt of the basketball program until I could get through football and go full bore into basketball.”

Pawlan was that man.

Krist has a background in basketball coaching, working in that sport with players at Petaluma junior high school and with the Petaluma High junior varsity. However, he is better known for coaching football. He has worked with head coach Steve Ellison since 1989.

Other than needing help in the transition period between seasons, he sees no conflict in coaching two sports, just as he sees no conflict in student athletes playing more than one sport.

“The last 15 years or so, it has been about concentrating on one sport, and I don’t think that’s necessary,” he says. “I think kids can get a lot out of playing more than one sport. I know I did.

“I have a passion for both football and basketball. I still play basketball. It is my favorite sport to play, but my favorite to coach is football.”

Krist is married and he and wife Lori have two sons, Robert 12, and Tyler, 8. He has coached his sons in youth basketball and baseball, and one of their favorite things is to hang out with their father at Petaluma sporting events. Robert helps on the sideline at Trojan football games.

Krist says he couldn’t devote so much time to his coaching if it weren’t for his wife.

“She is very supportive,” he explains. “She takes the brunt of the home things while I coach. The big thing is that we’ve accepted that this (coaching) is our life.”

Krist is not only all about coaching, he is all about Petaluma High. He and his two brothers, Jim and Mike, all excelled in sports at Petaluma. His parents are both Petaluma High graduates, and almost never missed a game their sons, or now their grandchildren, participated in.

“I’m all about Petaluma. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Krist says.

He has had several opportunities to be a head football coach at other schools, but has stayed as an assistant out of loyalty to the school and to his friend, Ellison.

Pawlan doesn’t quite have Krist’s family ties to Petaluma High, but he does have 18 years of coaching experience at the school. He has been a junior varsity coach and varsity assistant. He was head basketball coach from 1991 to 1996, resigning to devote more time to his sons.

Both sons were standout athletes at Petaluma. Brett, 19, was an all-league baseball player for the Trojans and is now a standout player at Santa Rosa Junior College. Drew, 17, is an outstanding linebacker for Petaluma’s current unbeaten football team.

Like Krist, Pawlan has a busy schedule, particularly teaching marine biology, which requires time-consuming field trips. He says for him, the co-coaching arrangement also works out well.

The coaches are pretty much in agreement on how they are going to handle the program, and what kind of offense and defense the Trojans will use. It is in their approaches that the two differ.

Krist talks in terms of players and general philosophy, while Pawlan speaks enthusiastically about specific offensive and defensive schemes.

“My philosophy will be based on the players,” says Krist. “I will take a look at what we have. I like to mix it up, but what we do will be based on what we have.”

Pawlan is more specific.

“On defense we want to be aggressive,” he says. “We will play mostly man-to-man, where they all help one another. We’ll use a lot of traps.

“We’ll be running an offense that is going to take awhile to learn. It depends on reading the defense.”

The big problem for the coaches in their first season is that they will be doing a lot of teaching and getting a very late start.

Petaluma returns two starting players to the varsity. Both (Ricky Sims and Braeden Ross) are standouts on the Trojan football team. That football team, which includes several other potential varsity basketball players, is certain to make the playoffs, and could well have a season that extends beyond Thanksgiving. The entire junior varsity basketball team is made up of football players, and they still have more than two weeks left in their season.

There is a very real possibility that Petaluma will have to cancel some of its early season basketball games.

But that is a temporary obstacle as the co-coaches look at the bigger goal of establishing a basketball program.

Both agree the main thing is to be open and honest with each individual player and with the team as a whole.

“We want to be open with all the players,” Pawlan explains. “We’re not going to make any empty promises.”