John Joseph Yavasile

John Joseph Yavasile was born on August 29, 1949, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to Joseph John and Ruth Ellen Yavasile. John and his two brothers, Klare and Mikey, spent their early childhood in Pennsylvania. In 1954, after his father's work with the railroad ended, a new job with the post office brought the Yavasile family across the country to Fresno, California. It was there that John would grow up and discover his lifelong love of sports.

John was a natural athlete and excelled in football, wrestling, and baseball in high school. As a senior, he was voted on by the student body as “Mr. Touchdown” for character and football ability, and was later selected to the Fresno All-Metro football team, recognizing him as one of Fresno County’s most outstanding high school players. Football continued at Fresno City College, where John played on teams that won back-to-back state championships, defeating Fullerton and East Los Angeles. Both of his championship teams were later inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame.

John was recruited to continue playing football at California State University, Hayward, where he was part of another successful football program. That team was later inducted into the Cal State East Bay Athletic Hall of Fame, honoring the accomplishments of John and his teammates. He briefly stepped away from college to join the Army Reserves, completing Basic Training and serving for six years.

He returned to complete his bachelor's degree in Kinesiology/Physical Education at Cal State Hayward. Education became another lifelong commitment. John later earned his teaching credential from St. Mary's College, a special education credential through UC Berkeley, and a Master's Degree in Physical Education from Cal State Bakersfield.

While John was living in Hayward, he met Missy Rider. They fell in love and were married in 1973, beginning a marriage and partnership that would span more than five decades.

After John completed his degree, teaching positions were scarce in the Bay Area. An opportunity to teach special education brought John and Missy to Visalia in 1975. That move would shape the rest of their lives.

That fall, John attended his first Redwood vs Mt. Whitney Cowhide football game. He may have remembered freezing in the thick Valley fog, but he remembered something else even more, and that was the packed Mineral King Bowl, spectators standing around the edges, and a level of school spirit unlike anything he had experienced before.

John knew he had found someplace special.

As he would later say, “God brought me to my dream job in Visalia.”

John began coaching at Redwood in 1975 under the mentorship of head coach Roger Kelly. He quickly moved up to the junior varsity program and became the head JV coach. After leading his team to a perfect 10–0 season in 1980, John was asked to move up to the varsity staff in 1981, where he coached the linebackers.

In 1989, John was selected to become Redwood’s head varsity football coach, a position he would hold for the next 22 years. He became Redwood’s all-time winningest head football coach, compiling a career record of 156–91–4. He was especially successful in the Cowhide rivalry against Mt. Whitney, with an impressive 19–3 record, including 10 consecutive Cowhide victories from 1990 through 1999. By the time he retired in 2011, John had devoted 36 years to Redwood High School, building a career and a legacy at the school he had come to love.

Among the highlights of John’s coaching career was leading Redwood to the 1996 Division I Valley Championship. Redwood had celebrated Valley Championships before, but the 1996 team took a path no other Redwood championship team had traveled. As the ninth seed, the Redwood Road Warriors had to win four consecutive playoff games, all on the road, to bring the Valley Championship home. But John would never have wanted his coaching career measured simply by wins, losses, championships, or trophies.

For John, football was a way to teach young men how to live.

He believed in hard work, discipline, commitment, responsibility, and doing things the right way. He could be firm, but his firmness was balanced by a wonderful sense of humor. His rules applied to everyone. It didn't matter whether you were the star of the team or the last player on the bench. John believed in fairness, and he never wavered from it.

For years, John arrived at Redwood before dawn to work in the weight room and teach young men the value of hard work. One group worked out from 5:00 to 6:00 in the morning and another from 6:00 to 7:00. He helped Roger Kelly build Redwood's first weight room and develop its original workout program. Years later, he helped design the school's new weight room and, with the help of his players, assembled the equipment that would fill it. Today, that facility bears his name, The John Yavasile Fitness Center, a fitting tribute to a man who spent so many years teaching young people that strength was about much more than lifting weights.

John's commitment to the program meant long days as well as early mornings. Once a month, after a full day of teaching and an afternoon of practice, he would stay for the Booster Club meeting, often not leaving until 9:00 at night. And football didn't stop when the school year ended. Along with working on the Farm, John spent 22 summers organizing and running the Redwood Passing Tournament, making football nearly a year-round part of his life.

John's career at Redwood extended well beyond football. He taught special education, later served as head of the Physical Education Department, and taught physical education during the later years of his teaching and coaching career. Whether he was in a classroom, a weight room, or on a football field, he was first and foremost a teacher. And some of John's most important lessons were never part of a lesson plan or a football playbook. He taught by example showing his students and players the importance of hard work, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and simply being a good person. Being a man of few words, John didn't just tell young people how they should live; he tried to show them through the way he lived his own life.

Recently John's decades of service and contributions to Redwood athletics were recognized when he was inducted into the Redwood High School Athletic Hall of Fame. It was a fitting honor for a man who had devoted so much of his life to Redwood and to generations of its students and athletes.

While football occupied many hours of John's life, his greatest accomplishment was never found on a football field.

It was his family.

Soon after moving to Visalia, John and Missy bought five acres of land. John initially looked at the property and saw mostly a lot of work. He wasn't wrong. But they bought it anyway, built their cozy log home themselves, log by log, and spent the next 50 years turning those five acres into what the family simply called “The Farm.”

John and Missy were always a team. He delighted in making her happy, and she was always his greatest supporter. She was his queen, he was her hero, and together they built a life they both loved.

There was always something for John to do. He mowed, disked, irrigated, planted, repaired, built, and continually found another project to improve the property and their home. When he wasn't teaching or coaching, there was a good chance he could be found outside working.

But amid the teaching, football, and endless farm projects, John and Missy raised three children, and nothing made him prouder.

His children were his proudest accomplishment.

After retiring in 2011, John finally had more time for the Farm and time to enjoy some of the things his busy teaching and coaching years had left little room for, including playing golf. He continued to enjoy working around the property and spending time with his family and grandchildren, who especially enjoyed rides around the Farm in his Gator, affectionately known as “The Green Machine.”

John's faith was deeply personal. Although he was soft-spoken about his faith, he believed that God was in charge. He saw himself as one of God's tools and tried to live his life in a way that would be pleasing to Him.

Looking back on John's life, there were championships and honors, victories and accomplishments. There were early mornings in the weight room, Friday nights under the lights, long days working on the Farm, and countless hours devoted to his students, players, and family.

But the measure of John's life cannot be found in a win-loss record.

It can be found in the family he loved the children and grandchildren who brought him so much joy, and the generations of young men who left his football program understanding a little more about hard work, responsibility, fairness, perseverance, and character.

John is survived by his wife, Missy; his children, Jeramie Bhatia (Nitin), Jacob Yavasile (Jessica), and Dustin Yavasile (Chante); his beloved grandchildren, Divya, Bodhi, Luke, Dempsey, Owen, Austin, and Taylor; his brothers, Klare Yavasile (Carol) and Michael Yavasile (Leah) as well as several nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews.

John's life can perhaps best be summed up by four things that remained at its center:

Faith. Family. Farm. Football.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Matthew 25:21