By: Hailey Smithson
Mr. Rooney has been a part of Redwood for decades, between his time as a softball coach and teacher on campus, he has changed many lives through the connections he builds with his students and athletes.
His coaching career began when his oldest daughter Keri began to play baseball at a young age. Keri began middle school at Green Acres after moving to Visalia in 1990. There Rooney was a teacher and coached 7th-grade boys basketball and baseball.
After a few years, he began coaching softball at Redwood as a volunteer assistant coach in 1994. The next year he got his spot as the head coach of the Varsity Softball team.
Rooney coached all three of his daughters during their times at Redwood (Keri, Teri, and Julie). He says, “Coaching my own kids was hard for me and them.”
Although there were some hard times he says “there were plenty of good times after victories and defeats when we played well we grew together”.
While his daughter Julie was a senior in 1999, Redwood Softball got its first WYL championship after their undefeated season.
His older daughters Keri and Teri both continued their softball careers at the D1 level and were very successful with both grades and athletics.
“Once I started coaching here at Redwood it was easy to keep going.”
-Mr. Rooney
Eventually, his granddaughters began to make their way into the Redwood Softball program.
Both Jordyn Montoya, ’19, and Mariah Guerrero, ’20, played on his varsity squad. He is expecting to also coach Guerrero’s little sister Aaliyah when she gets to Redwood next year.
Rooney says, “It’s much less stressful coaching grandkids than daughters”. He believes this is because he is, “older and hopefully wiser now and have learned many things the “hard way” over the years”.
photo credit : Mariah Guerrero
One of his granddaughters Mariah Guerrero ’20 says that through playing for her grandpa they, “grew closer and bonded over the game”. She says, “I honestly don’t think we were closer than when I played for him, it gave us something to talk about…we bonded a lot over those two years”.
The thing that stuck with Guerrero the most when playing for Coach Rooney was, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish”. She says, “He taught me to never give up and that even when it’s hard keep pushing because it’ll get better in the end”.
Rooney has led his athletes to two valley championships (‘14 and ‘18) in his time as head coach. One of his favorite moments was winning valley in 2018 because his granddaughter Jordyn was a part of the team.
He says, “I wouldn’t say I was inspired to coach, but I had played sports while in high school and football when I was in the Navy and there weren’t a lot of people who wanted to coach little kids, so I volunteered”.
Throughout his career, he has won the WYL title multiple times and sent many of his athletes on to play at a higher level. He has led his teams to two valley wins over the time he has coached at Redwood.
As well as coaching at Redwood Rooney has been teaching at Redwood since the fall of 1996. He has taught, “drafting both manual and CAD, woodworking, and Intro to Auto.” He is currently teaching, “Metal Manufacturing and the junior class of the Architecture, Construction, and Engineering (ACE) Academy”. He is also the Department Chair of Industrial Technology.