Ellison is Petaluma's moral compass

In mid-rant, Steve Ellison heard his players behind him.

They were yelling. And swearing. And giving hell to the referee who made the questionable call. They were, in other words, copying their foaming-at-the-mouth leader.

Ellison, then a young coach at Sacred Heart Cathedral in San Francisco, immediately stopped berating the official. And by the time he reached the locker room at halftime, he understood with more intensity than ever before that he was a role model — for better or worse — to a bunch of teenagers who needed so much more than the right play call on 3rd-and-7.

“I left that referee and went into the locker room and thought to myself ‘Boy, was that stupid,'” said Ellison, recalling the incident from more than 30 years ago. “They were modeling my behavior. And I was a guy who was out of control.”

As Ellison, 65, leads unbeaten and top-seeded Petaluma against No. 9 Cardinal Newman today in the North Coast Section Division II quarterfinals, it's clear that his sideline tantrum left an indelible impression.

You see, whenever Ellison retires — and he says it's possible this could be his final season — he won't be defined by his 217 career wins, which rank him tied for second in Empire history.

Rather, it will be his qualities that can't be quantified. Class. Integrity. Dignity. Poise. Humility.

During his 33 years at Petaluma, 31 as a head coach, Ellison has motivated without screaming. He's won without compromising. And now he's admired and respected, seemingly without exception.

Put it this way: Ellison is a grandfather who began coaching the sons of his former players a few years ago. The babysitters of his children — Shana, 33, and Scott, 30 — are now the moms of his players. And after all his time spent coaching in the same small town the biggest criticism of him is that he doesn't pass enough in his beloved triple-option offense.

That, perhaps more than anything, is a sure sign that the former longtime AP History teacher at Petaluma has given his players a lesson plan they can follow for a lifetime.

Karen Sims, a divorced single mom whose son, Ricky, is a star senior fullback, says Ellison has changed her son's life largely by his calm and steady example.

“Coach Ellison is a humble-spirited man who has guided these young men over the years with this mindset: You can't be the best unless you give your best,” Sims said. “He teaches them to be aggressive, strong and powerful and to have a voice. But also how to be respectful to your sport, your teammates, your opponents and to have great sportsmanship.”

Ellison doesn't get his message across in high decibels. He's driven to win — his wife of 36 years, Linda, says he can barely sleep because he's so wound up after games — but he admits that people have wondered if he's comatose on the sideline.

Linda Ellison says she can always tell when her husband is irate during a game because he rubs his hand hard on the back of his neck.

Similarly, it can, initially, be just as hard to see how Ellison has inspired a generation of players.

In putting together a story about Ellison — a topic he dryly noted sounded a bit dull — it's a challenge to illicit revealing anecdotes about the wise sage and his life-changing ways.

His current players, perhaps too young to fully grasp his influence, are earnest and well-meaning.

“He teaches us to do everything with our best effort,” said senior tight end/linebacker Braeden Ross.

Offered senior wide receiver/cornerback Dalton Johnson, “He doesn't just want to make you into a better football player. He wants to make you into a better person as well.”

But when asked for specifics — how does he do it? — Ross and Johnson seem stumped. Even Sims, who counts Ellison as a second father, is at a bit of a loss to articulate his feelings. It's the same with Rick Krist, a ball boy on Ellison's first team, his quarterback a few years later and a longtime assistant under him at Petaluma. Krist still can't call his old coach “Steve,” but he also can't quite put into words how Ellison has influenced him.

But talk to enough opposing coaches, former players and members of Ellison's family and you finally begin to get it.

Ellison, never a fan of the rousing pregame speech, is more about showing than telling. And for a generation, the man who has run the same offense at the same school and had the same wife and lived in the same house, has been just as consistent in quietly following his principles.

“He's conducted himself the same way for 31 years,” said Ken Johnson, Dalton's dad, who played on Ellison's first team at Petaluma and counts him among his closest friends. “That's why I started begging him to keep coaching long enough to coach Dalton. I started asking him when Dalton was in sixth grade.”

So what exactly did Johnson want his son to learn?

Well, certainly something about humility, a trait Ellison developed at Sacred Heart, where he had a 12-47 record and endured a 24-game losing streak as the head coach from 1971-76.

Under Ellison, the Irish were so bad that even his assistant for three years, future Super Bowl champion Mike Holmgren, considered getting out of coaching.

Ellison tried everything to reverse the fortunes of a program which practiced about seven miles from campus in Golden Gate Park and had no locker-room facilities. And when nothing worked, he realized the Irish, besides not having their own practice field or lockers, also lacked what every coach needs to be successful: Talent.

It's a lesson that was further enforced when he left Sacred Heart and became an assistant coach at Petaluma, where the Trojans went 12-0 and won a section title in his first year. Petaluma, he noted, was simply more gifted than its opponents.

His early coaching experience explains why Ellison never deflects praise, even indirectly, to himself after victories. It's never about how he prepared his players; it's only about his players.

“Players win games and lose games,” Ellison said. “We certainly have a role as coaches, but the team with the best players usually wins.”

Ellison hasn't always had the best players through the years — only a handful have played Division I football — but longtime rivals such Sonoma's Mick O'Meara and Healdsburg's Tom Kirkpatrick say Ellison's teams can always be counted on to play hard and with class, traits they don't develop by accident.

Rancho Cotate coach Ed Conroy says Ellison was the only coach to call and offer encouragement when he went 0-10 in his second season 19 years ago. Years later, when Conroy won his first section championship, Ellison was the first to call and congratulate him.

When Rick O'Brien became the coach at cross-town rival Casa Grande, Ellison reached out to him. He offered advice for building a program and discussed ways to improve the rivalry between the schools, which at the time had grown increasingly bitter. When O'Brien retired last year, Ellison spoke at length with his replacement, 34-year-old Trent Herzog, who welcomed the assistance from a man who has been coaching longer than Herzog has been alive.

“I think Steve loves coaching, but the thing about him is that he loves sharing coaching with other people,” Conroy said. “He'll share anything he has with anybody. He has no problem making other coaches better even if he's going to end up playing against them.”

Ellison sees nothing special about his generosity, “I'm not holding any big secret. And neither are any of them.”

But that doesn't mean Ellison hasn't spent endless hours — or traveled thousands of miles — in an effort to keep gaining knowledge.

In his earlier years, Ellison traveled — going to UCLA, USC, Oregon State and the Air Force Academy — to pick the brains of college coaches. Some years, he'd write about 25 coaches to get tips on structuring practice.

Like any great teacher, Ellison, who taught AP History for 26 years, loves to instruct. But he's also never stopped learning.

With the advent of the Internet, he's changed with the times, writing online articles about the triple option and regularly trading e-mails and swapping ideas with coaches across the country.

Petaluma defensive coordinator Manny Lopes, who played for Ellison from 1987-89 and has been an assistant for 20 years, wasn't surprised when Ellison called him in the dead of this past winter to share defensive ideas he got following a series of e-mails with a coach in Suwanee, Ga.

“He's forever reaching out and trying to learn more,” Lopes said. “One of the main things he told me is that you can never be content. You can always learn more. And that's what makes him special. You might think after 40 years, he might say ‘OK, I know enough.' But he doesn't believe that. He's always trying to find an edge.”

Scott Ellison, who played for his dad and is now a product analyst in San Francisco, says he's adopted his father's work ethic. Just like his teams always have.

“We never had 6-6, 300 pound guys at Petaluma,” said Scott Ellison, a former offensive lineman. “But I think we were able to have success because we all understood the value of hard work.”

Ellison, who scribbles notes on a pad when a triple-option team such as Georgia Tech is on TV, clearly has an unwavering passion for football. But his love for the game has never come before his family.

Holmgren left Sacred Heart for Oak Grove, a high school power in San Jose, and never stopped climbing the coaching ladder. Ellison left Sacred Heart for Petaluma and never regretted his decision to stay put.

“A long time ago, I realized that this is an extremely fragile way of life,” Ellison said. “I wanted a stable situation for me and my family and I thought high school would be a great way to achieve that. I don't know if (coaching in college) ever would have even been available to me, but it wasn't a life I wanted. I wanted the stability. I love the fact that my kids grew up in this town.”

Ellison's daughter, Shana Stewart, is a first-grade teacher in Mill Valley who says her father's love of education inspired her. She talks with her dad daily, calls him a great friend and has her class phone him every Friday in the fall to offer a good-luck cheer. Scott Ellison calls his dad his “moral compass.” Linda Ellison calls him her “grounding force.”

Of course, no one will ever call Ellison “Super Bowl champion” and he admits that, yes, he's dreamt a little over the years.

When he watched Holmgren — the guy who once worked under him — win the NFL's ultimate prize, he wondered what a moment like that might feel like. And when he's seen other friends coaching in a stadium stuffed with 80,000 fans, he's thought that it sure looked fun.

In the next breath, though, Steve Ellison — a beloved father and husband, a revered coach and an inspiration to countless young men — says he has no regrets.

The sentiment isn't surprising, but coming from Ellison it is somehow stirring.

He is, after all, a teacher and coach who has never stopped learning.

And he learned, years ago, that his most enduring victories wouldn't come on a football field.

For more coverage of Empire high school sports, visit Eric Branch's blog at prepsports.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Writer Eric Branch at 521-5268 or eric.branch@pressdemocrat.com.