Darren Jackson announced Monday morning that he is stepping down as head coach of the Pajaro Valley High girls basketball team four months after he led the program to a league championship.
“It was a tough decision to make,” Jackson said. “I really was grateful for the opportunity the administrators and athletic director gave me. It was just time to move on.”
Jackson was hired in September to help rebuild a program that hadn’t had a winning season in seven years since they captured the Pacific Coast Athletic League’s Santa Lucia Division title in 2018-19.
In just one year at the helm, he led the co-Cypress Division champion Grizzlies to their second league title in the program’s history, and his 13th overall.
“I wasn’t surprised,” PV athletic director Joe Manfre said. “He was put into a hard situation with participation for girls with our numbers in our girls basketball program. They’ve been declining the last couple of years.”
Jackson began the season with 15 girls on the roster, but ended up with eight after PV finished with a 16-8 overall record while sharing the league championship with Pacific Collegiate as both teams went 12-2 in league play.
“But, obviously, he did a great job with the group of girls that he had,” Manfre said.
Jackson was the former head coach at North Salinas for 24 years before being released from his duties in October 2024. He led the program to 469 total wins, 12 league titles and three Central Coast Section crowns.
It didn’t take long for Jackson, who currently sits with 485 career wins as a head coach, to find a new home. He was officially introduced as the new girls basketball head coach at Carmel High this week.
Manfre said anyone interested in the vacant position can apply on the EDJOIN website at https://www.edjoin.org/Home/JobPosting/2238692.
