JSerra names Verbum Dei grad Hardy Nickerson its football coach
Hardy Nickerson, a Verbum Dei graduate who played linebacker at Cal, made the Pro Bowl five times, coached in college and the NFL and had two stints as head coach at Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland, has been named head football coach at JSerra.
Nickerson, 60, becomes the Trinity League’s first black football coach since its inception in 2008.
“I’ve been around football a lot and I’ve coached at every level,” he said. “We’re in the most competitive league in the country, the SEC in high school football, but at the same time it’s about developing young men and mentoring them. You can really have some great learning moments in this space.”
JSerra hopes to strike gold like Santa Margarita did by hiring Heisman Trophy winner and 15-year NFL quarterback Carson Palmer, who won a Southern Section Division 1 championship and a CIF State Championship Open Division bowl victory this year in his rookie season as head coach. Palmer used his NFL connections to build a cadre of top-notch assistant coaches.
Nickerson also has extensive NFL connections and much more coaching experience than Palmer. He previously served as a defensive coordinator at Illinois, was an NFL assistant with the 49ers, Bears and Buccaneers and was head coach at Bishop O’Dowd from 2010 to 2013 and from 2022 to this season, when his team won a Division 5-AA state championship.
He said his phone was busy hearing from many Verbum Dei graduates. He graduated from the Los Angeles school in 1983.
“They’re excited,” he said.
He takes over a program that went 3-7 last season and has severed ties with former Azusa Pacific head coach Victor Santa Cruz. Nickerson will soon learn that coaching in the Trinity League is similar to college and the NFL, where teams expect to win or there is little assurance of keeping a job for long.
