Pete Lavorato, who turns 70 years old in August, is ready for what lies ahead.
After nearly two decades as a high school football coach in the Peninsula, the seven-time Central Coast Section champion opted to retire.
“The word itself is kind of a funny word,” Lavorato said. “You hear different stories and you hear different thoughts on it. Everybody’s got different ideas on what it’s about.”
A proponent of the fly sweep, which Jim Harbaugh adopted with the San Francisco 49ers, Lavorato delivered five CCS titles during a six-year span at the tail end of 14 seasons as the head coach at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton.
For personal reasons he left in 2017 to coach at The King’s Academy in Sunnyvale, where he claimed back-to-back CCS trophies during a four-year stint.
“All my life has been about competition,” Lavorato said. “Trying to beat somebody, or winning and losing. And I’m really tired of it. I just feel like it’s not really as important as I made it.”
That’s not the main reason he’s chosen to step away.
As a freshman at Utah State, Lavorato met his future wife, Nancy. Marriage followed four years later in 1975.
“I just really felt like I had short-changed my relationship with my wife,” Lavorato said. “Maybe it was just me, I don’t know, football was so all-encompassing that I felt like it was time for Nancy and me to spend more quality time together – at any time I wanted. Not just when football season was over.”
In a twist of fate, Lavorato currently resides in Kauai, Hawaii – known as the “Garden Island.”
The 69-year-old hails from Canada and is a 10-year veteran of the Canadian Football League. He grew up in 30-below conditions while playing football, basketball, hockey and tennis.
The nearest ocean? Many, many, multiple miles away.
Last week, Lavorato went for a hike with his eldest child, Luke, and his three grandsons under 80-degree weather without a cloud in the sky.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘Who would’ve guessed, who would’ve known that here’s some guy from Edmonton, Alberta ends up living in Hawaii,’” Lavorato said.
Pete and Nancy Lavorato also own a home in Edmonton, where his three sisters reside.
Three years ago, after a vacation to Kauai, one of Nancy’s brothers informed the couple that his neighbor’s home went on the market. A few days later Nancy flew out again and put an offer on the estate.
“It was the most fortunate thing we’ve done because prices have just gone crazy here,” Lavorato said.
Whenever not in Hawaii and Edmonton due to his football duties, Lavorato at times found himself a guest of his daughter Natalie, who married a former SHP staff member – James Perez, the assistant director of football sports performance at Stanford.
That allowed Lavorato to bond with his granddaughter, Mila, with another grandson on the way.
His other daughter, Vanessa, lives in Los Angeles.
But the Bay Area family that Lavorato leaves behind includes names such as Matt Moran, Mark Modeste, John Gilmore, etcetera.
He finds the timing “amusing” after SHP claimed its first football state title last month.
What are his favorite memories?
“Do you have the time?” Lavorato said. “Just coming from sort of nowhere, nothing, and building it all the way.”
In 2013, SHP upset a heralded squad out of El Cerrito in a 42-7 rout to reach a CIF state final.
The next year, the Gators capped a perfect 13-0 campaign with a 14-0 shutout over Bellarmine in the CCS Open Division championship game.
The following season SHP claimed another NorCal title.
Yet, Lavorato goes back even further.
In 2006, as a member of the North Coast Section, the Gators defeated Salesian and its Cal-bound running back Jahvid Best, who spent a couple of seasons in the NFL with the Detroit Lions.
The next week, SHP lost 29-28 at none other than TKA on a controversial missed field goal in the final minute – a result that lives in infamy.
“We got home on the bus and kids are crying,” Lavorato said. “High school boys crying because they literally feel like they got robbed. We get home and they’re still distraught, they’re still crying. … We sat down together as a team in that locker room under the main building and we talked it out.
“I prayed with the whole team afterwards and I just said, ‘You know what, in life you’re going to have things happen to you that are totally not fair and you’re going to have to deal with it. And this is a lesson to help you later on when real tough things happen.
“And after it was all over with, every kid left that locker room fine, with a smile on their face. I guess I tell you that story because over all the years football has been such a blessing to me and such a blessing to be able to coach young men and try to help them in terms of nurturing.”
Lavorato is ready to retire, to end a lifelong relationship on the sidelines.
Aloha, coach.
“I’m going to do something,” he said. “I just don’t know what it’s going to be, yet.”
