Benny Pierce, who coached football at Saratoga High School for more than three decades, recently entered assisted living due to health issues. Pierce and his wife Mignon are pictured here at his induction into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. Recalling Pierce’s acceptance speech, longtime friend Bob Martin said, “It was when he talked about how lucky he was to have his wife and family that Benny choked up.” (Courtesy photo)
When word got out that Benny Pierce, longtime football coach at Saratoga High School, had entered assisted living recently due to health issues, admirers lined up to explain why they rank him as a true American all-star.
Pierce, 88, is a legend at Saratoga High and in high school football in Santa Clara Valley. His record is 270-84-4 for 358 high school games in 33 seasons, including 16 league championships, a county title and four Central Coast Section crowns. Pierce served as a head coach in the first Santa Clara County All Star Football Game in 1974 and was head coach for the North team in the 21st annual Charlie Wedemeyer All Star Football Game in 1995.
His interest in coaching began on the fields of Los Gatos High School, where he was a four-sport athlete who was devoted to practice, and where his coach Hal Sonntag had a strong influence on his life and was a role model for Pierce’s style of coaching. Pierce still lives in Los Gatos.
Pierce came to Saratoga High as one of the school’s original teachers in 1959 and coached until 1994, with only one losing season—his first year as coach. After realizing he “didn’t like to lose,” he won his first league championship two years later.
“I accept losing, but you play to win,” Pierce said. “If it doesn’t bother you when you lose a game, there is something wrong.”
His 1980 team ended the season undefeated and ranked sixth nationally. At one point, he was the winningest football coach in California. In his honor, the football field at Saratoga High is named Benny Pierce Field and is a reminder of the inspiration and success he brought to hundreds of his players over the years.
“He was a coach who knew his football,” says Frank Behnke, who played lineman for Pierce at Saratoga High. “He always made us practice and instilled in us a sense of dedication and love for the sport. His halftime speeches always pumped us up, and we came out to win in the second half, and we usually did.”
Former Saratoga High teacher and basketball coach Dan Wilson met Pierce at Los Gatos High and roomed with him at San Jose State. “To Benny, football was more than a sport but a way of life,” Wilson says. “He is one great football coach, and one great friend.”
Pierce was so well thought of that offers to coach at higher levels came his way. Longtime friends and fellow Saratoga High teacher Hugh Roberts says Pierce may have been one of the few people to say no to Bill Walsh.
“Benny played football as quarterback at San Jose State,” Roberts says. “He threw to end Bill Walsh—the same Bill Walsh from 49er and college and pro football fame. They remained good friends.
“When Bill Walsh was the coach at Stanford, he asked Benny to come with him as an assistant coach. Benny talked it over with his wife Mignon, and it seems to have been a mutual decision that they simply did not want the traveling life of a college football coach, and certainly not as an NFL coach. They made a choice for the type of family life they wanted. Bill Walsh told me that story. Benny confirmed it.”
“It was flattering at times to be offered opportunities,” Pierce said. “But I enjoyed high school and enjoyed the community.”
Pierce’s loyalty and dependability were characteristics that kept him at the high school level throughout his career. His roots are in Los Gatos, and he has a strong loyalty to Saratoga High School, his home and his family.
“My Dad has always made me proud,” says daughter Brenda Skrabe. “He has never compromised his values to take the easy road. I can hold my head high when I say he is my father.
“When (my brother) Larry and I were young, the only negative side was that we would get held up wherever we went—church, out to dinner, a game, shopping, etc.—because he would be recognized. He always took to the time to talk to whomever approached him and reminisce. He remembered everyone and he still does.”
His late wife Mignon was one of Pierce’s staunchest supporters. She was on hand in 2005 when Pierce was inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of fame.
“I remember his speech upon acceptance into the Hall of Fame when he said how much he loved coaching,” longtime friend Bob Martin said. “It was what he wanted to do, and he considered himself blessed that his career was what he wanted. He always said that coaching is a great profession.
“It was when he talked about how lucky he was to have his wife and family that Benny choked up. I think all of us in the audience did as well.”
Coaches can be one of the most influential figures in the life of an athlete, teaching life skills, confidence, resilience, and social participation. Their influence can continue long after the season ends.
“I owe Benny Pierce a lot,” says Brick McIntosh, former quarterback at both Saratoga High and Cornell University. “He materially changed the trajectory of my life. As a freshman at Saratoga, he approached me in a PE class and encouraged me to try out for the football team…something I had never contemplated.
“After my junior year he pushed me to pursue the game in college and assisted me in the recruiting process. That experience has come back to me in many, many positive ways from a career standpoint and in life.”
McIntosh, who graduated from high school in 1967, played for Pierce in the early days of the coach’s career.
“Benny was the brains behind those powerful SHS offensive football teams in the mid-’60s,” he says. “Of all the coaches I played for in three different sports in high school and college, there is not a one who I respected more, not only as a coach but as a gentleman.”
When asked if it was all worth it, Pierce’s response is an emphatic “Absolutely.”
“It was always (about) being able to help young people become good people,” says the coach. “I tried to make them better football players, a better team and maybe better men.”
Originally published at Debby Rice