Longtime Monte Vista High School football coach Ed Carberry was inducted Saturday into the California Community College Football Hall of Fame in Visalia.
Carberry went in as a coach while Southwestern College alumnus Luis Perez was inducted as a player. Perez played three seasons under Carberry’s watch during a long stint at the community college level following his departure from the Spring Valley school.
“It’s not often that a coach and a player from the same school get inducted in the same year,” said Carberry, who coached 19 years at the community college level, including 14 years at Southwestern College, three years at Mt. San Jacinto College and a season each as an assistant coach at L.A. Harbor and Grossmont College. following a decorated 25-year high school coaching career.
Carberry helped guide teams to 12 bowl games, including nine at Southwestern College.
Perez, an Otay Ranch High School alumnus, played three seasons at SWC, including one redshirt season. He subsequently transferred to Texas A&M-Commerce where he won the NCAA Division II national championship and player of the year honors in 2017.
Perez won a professional championship with the XFL Arlington Renegades in 2023.
A total of 10 individuals were inducted into the latest class of honorees. One individual came from as far away as Hawaii to be honored in person.
“It was amazing,” said Carberry, who compiled a 100-59-1 record during 14 seasons at Monte Vista.
Perez could not attend the ceremony because of a conflict with a professional football scrimmage.
“It would have been pretty neat if he could have been there, but he’s a professional athlete and it was there only scrimmage before the season started.”
For Carberry, his life has centered around football as either a player or a coach. It’s the latter that has brought him recognition.
“It’s about developing players for life, getting them ready to move on, either to the next level as a player and to move on to be successful in life,” he said.
Carberry grew up in the Whittier area and played football at St. Paul High School under legendary coach Marijon Ancich, winning the 1972 CIF Southern Section championship. He later went on to play center for Cerritos College.
Carberry got his coaching feet wet as an assistant at Bishop Montgomery High School from 1978-80 and also served as an assistant coach at Los Angeles Harbor College before becoming head coach at St. Anthony High School.
Carberry returned to Ancich’s sphere of influence as an assistant coach for Tustin High School from 1984-88. The future Monte Vista coach said 90 percent of what he is as a coach comes from playing for and coaching for Ancich, the second-winningest high school football coach in California history with a record of 360-134- 4.
Ancich, a native of Yugoslavia, coached 20 years as a head coach at St. Paul High School, eight years at Tustin High School, a second stint at St. Paul (1993- 2005) and a third stint at St. Paul (2009-12). He won three CIF titles, two state titles and 19 league championships.
Carberry came south in 1989 as head coach at Monte Vista High School where in 14 seasons he would amass two section championships, seven league titles and 11 playoff berths. The Monarchs won their first CIF championship in school history in 1995 with future NFL player Michael Wiley (who Carberry said was the greatest player he ever coached).
Wiley rushed for 1,901 yards and 23 touchdowns as a senior at Monte Vista before going on to play at Ohio State University and the Dallas Cowboys. Wiley rushed for 3,417 yards and 38 touchdowns as a Monarch. While at Ohio State, he won the Sugar Bowl as a junior with the Buckeyes and rushed for 2,951 yards, 4,191 all-purpose yards and 35 touchdowns.
Wiley played three seasons for the Cowboys, scoring one rushing touchdown and two receiving touchdowns primarily as a back-up.
Carberry racked up 100 wins at Monte Vista High School to become just the third coach in the Grossmont Union High School District to collect 100 victories at one school. Carberry’s Monarchs also won the 2003 Division II section title. Carberry’s team won seven Grossmont League championships where he was a seven-time league coach of the year.
Carberry made the jump into the community college coaching ranks in 2004 at Mt. San Jacinto College. He led the Eagles to an 8-3 record and Beach Bowl berth in 2005 and a 7-3 record in 2006. In three years, his teams finished 19-12.
He moved over to Southwestern College as head coach in 2007 where he pretty much cemented his coaching legacy with five American Mountain Conference championships, three American Conference coach of the year awards (2012, 2016, 2017) and two California Community College Football Coaches Association Region V coach of the year awards (2012, 2017).
The Jaguars finished 10-1 in 2012 with a conference title and a victory over Santa Monica in the American Bowl. In 2013, SWC went 9-3 and defeated San Bernardino Valley in the Patriotic Bowl. Carberry set a school record in 2014 with a third consecutive bowl game victory, coming with a second postseason win over Santa Monica.
Carberry’s success on the field led the school to refurbishing DeVore Stadium into one of the nation’s top community college stadiums.
The Jags finished runner-up in the 2016 American Bowl to Los Angeles Valley but bounced back in 2017 with an American Bowl game victory over Allan Hancock. He earned conference coach of the year in both 2016 and 2017. He scored another bowl game victory in 2018 over Palomar College in the Beach Bowl but finished runner-up to Long Beach City in the 2019 Southern California Bowl.
The 2020 season was cancelled because of the COVID pandemic and the Southwestern program never fully recovered due to player availability and recruiting. Carberry finished 3-7 in his last season with the Jaguars in 2021 and retired in February 2022 after 45 years coaching football.
He finished 88-59 as the winningest coach in SWC history.
He compiled 101 wins as a high school head coach (101-74-2) and a 107-71 record at the community college level.
Carberry remained true to his two coaching principles: accountability and what he called “finding a way.”
“We preached two things to every player at every level: Find a way to advance, get the basic concepts to do so, learn and grow.”
Perez joined Carberry at Southwestern College in 2013 as a walk-on without any varsity football experience at Otay Ranch. Carberry said he noted Perez’s potential, however, despite starting low on the team’s depth chart.
“He obviously had the talent, but he was a student of the game, he didn’t have a feel for it,” Carberry said. “He studied a lot about the game.”
And he learned. He finished with 2,234 passing yards and 23 touchdowns against four interceptions with the Jags.
And he moved on … and up.
He red-shirted his first season at Texas A&M-Commerce (now East Texas A&M University) before embarking on a noteworthy college pigskin career. He became the first person of Hispanic descent to start as quarterback for the Lions, a Division II school.
Commerce finished 10-1 in regular season play in 2017 and qualified for the Division II playoffs for the third consecutive year. The Lions won four preliminary-round games, including a double-overtime thriller over Central Washington, to reach the national championship game.
Commerce defeated West Florida to give the Lions their second national championship in school history and first since joining the NCAA ranks in 1982. He landed the coveted Harlan Hill Award as the best player in Division II, National Offensive Player of the Year and first team All-American honors.
In his final season with the Lions, Perez passed for 5,001 yards with 46 touchdowns and a 162.9 quarterback rating.
He was among only three players in all NCAA divisions to pass for more than 5,000 yards.
