On Dec. 13, 2024, Nick Rolovich was hired as senior offensive assistant for the football program at University of California Berkeley (Cal).
For the last two years, he has been an assistant coach for varsity football at San Marin. Players admire Rolovich’s dedication to the team and the impact he has left on them, both as human beings and as players.
One of these student-athletes is junior Luke Saysette a linebacker on the San Marin varsity football team.
“He’s very influential and philosophical,” Saysette said. “He really makes you observe situations to their fullest and makes you want to be a better person.”
Prior to coaching at San Marin, Rolovich coached for many college programs. Rolovich started at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa from 2008 to 2011 as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
For the next three years, he held the same positions at the University of Nevada. He was then the head coach at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and Washington State University, leading successful programs for both teams.
While Rolovich’s coaching positions have changed, his goals have remained the same. He believes that a football team should be a community, and it has always been his goal to build that community on each team he coaches.
“I hope I can positively influence the players and coaches on the team, win more football games, and score more points on offense,” Rolovich said.
Coaching collegiate football is different from coaching high school, partly due to the NCAA transfer portal. The portal opens twice a year allowing student-athletes to leave their current school in hopes of being picked up by one more fit for their goals.
The athlete entering the portal is oftentimes the first notification a coach receives of their athlete’s leaving.
On Dec. 24, 2024, Cal’s starting quarterback Fernando Mendoza used the transfer portal to transfer to Indiana University Bloomington. He wrote in a farewell note posted to the social media app X that he believed his future football career relied on his transferring.
While the transfer portal can cause teams to lose players, it also gives the teams the opportunity to gain them.
Right after the loss of Mendoza, on Jan. 5, Cal gained a new quarterback, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. Sagapolutele was originally committed to Cal in the summer of 2024, but on early National Signing Day in December of last year, he switched to the University of Oregon. He then re-entered the transfer portal and got picked back up by the Golden Bears.
Coaches have to decide if they would rather spend their money picking up high school athletes or well-versed college athletes.
“High schoolers are still developing and while you need that base in your program, it ultimately is up to a coach on whether or not he wants to spend money on a high schooler or someone in the transfer portal. So, high schoolers don’t have as many opportunities,” Rolovich said.
While Rolovich isn’t head coach, he hopes to bring in new ideas and a unique change of perspective that will give the Golden Bears football team more opportunities to leave their mark next season, both through winning games and making players better people.
