building connections on and off the field

By Marlene Camarillo

Adrian Pedroza, also known as Coach Pedroza, is a first-year forensic science and biology teacher at Yerba Buena High School.

Coach Pedroza loves the relationships he builds with his students in the classroom.

Pedroza: “It’s the relationships, it’s students coming into my class before school starts, at lunch, ‘Hey coach how’s your day going?’, me asking how their days going, you know. Get to know their family, you get to know the student outside of the classroom.”

As soon as students walk into his classroom, he usually has his day set up so they know exactly what they are going to be doing. This helps the students set up and get right on task as soon as they walk into the class.

Pedroza: “The students need to know what they're gonna be doing that day so even you as my student you come in and there's a class agenda.”

Forensic science is a setup of the real world that allows for the more mature students to get a better understanding of the obvious things going on around them.

Pedroza: “I really love seeing the looks on my more mature and older students when we’re going over forensics because there’s some things that they see that are evident out there in the world… just like how do you study forensics, how do you go about studying a crime scene. Well you lay it out, same thing with football this is the new play that we’re going over and I show it to them.”

He likes teaching, but he also coaches football. It can be somewhat time-consuming, but he still has a passion for coaching. He loves being out on the field with his team and watching them grow.

Pedroza: “It’s time-consuming, but I have a huge passion for it, and I really can’t see myself just teaching… You know when you win you see the development, skill development.”

Coaching football is time-consuming, but rewarding. He usually has a plan ready for the players, so that they don’t go into practice blindsided, not knowing what they will be doing.

Pedroza: “You have to be prepared so as a professional you have to make sure that your lesson planning is in or you have an idea and a picture or a framework of where you want your students to be learning.”

He wasn’t thinking of teaching or coaching while in college because he was focused on getting his PhD, but he took a course in college that required coaching something as part of the semester. This pushed him into coaching and brought him to where he is now.

Pedroza: “I was really geared and ready to get my PhD… My last semester at USC I took a philosophy of coaching course and that course I had to go and like coach for that semester and I chose to coach football. I was coaching at a junior college. I had you know some idea of what I was doing cause I’d played it my entire life. And I fell in love with it.”

He doesn’t find coaching or teaching to be much different from each other and he doesn’t have a preferred one.

Pedroza: “ I don’t think it's much different… I don’t prefer either one.”