The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday unanimously approved naming Watsonville High School’s athletic facility to honor longtime teacher and coach Roland Hedgpeth.
The proposal will change the name from Geiser Field to Hedgpeth Stadium-Geiser Field, retaining the name of former Watsonville High athletic director Emmett Geiser while adding that of Hedgpeth, whose association with Wildcat athletics spans more than six decades.
The proposal comes after a nearly two-year process that included consideration by the Watsonville High Booster Club, School Site Council and English Learner Advisory Committee, school administration, staff and cabinet. A community town hall was held April 29.
According to Watsonville High Principal Joseph Gregorio, the groups unanimously supported the proposed name.
Hedgpeth was a senior at Watsonville High in 1959 when he approached then-athletic director Emmett Geiser about forming a soccer team. Geiser turned down the request, but Hedgpeth and other students played anyway.
Their unofficial team made it through five games before news of it appeared in the local newspaper and a vice principal ordered the students to stop playing.
Twelve years later, the situation came full circle.
When Aptos High School opened in 1971 and Watsonville High’s soccer coach transferred to the new school, the same vice principal contacted Hedgpeth, who was then teaching at Mintie White Elementary School, and offered him the coaching job.
“Remember when I told you to stop playing soccer?” the vice principal asked, according to the proposal. “I am calling to see if you would like to be our soccer coach.”
That began a coaching career that has lasted more than half a century.
Hedgpeth has coached for 54 years, including 37 years at the varsity level and 28 years in football, according to the school. He also spent 36 years teaching in PVUSD at the elementary through high school levels.
His soccer teams have amassed a combined varsity and junior varsity record of 722 wins, 126 losses and 116 ties, along with 37 varsity league championships, 14 junior varsity league championships and 12 Central Coast Section titles.
The program earned a No. 1 national ranking in 2001 and finished as the California Open Division runner-up in 2021-22. In 2025, Watsonville won a Northern California championship and finished as state runner-up.
Alvaro Castillo said he has known Hedgpeth since the 1970s and played for him for more than four years.
He described Hedgpeth as a man who cared deeply for his players and racked up numerous wins.
“For the 50 years he coached, he put Watsonville on the map,” Castillo said.
Nancy Bilicich, a former Watsonville High School principal and Watsonville City Council member who now leads Watsonville/Aptos/Santa Cruz Adult Education, praised Hedgpeth’s leadership.
“He expected his players to conduct themselves with dignity, whether they won or lost,” she said. “… It was incredibly rewarding to watch their success and celebrate along the way.”
Supporters of the renaming say Hedgpeth’s influence extends beyond his teams’ success on the field.
According to the proposal, about 70% of his athletes have gone on to graduate from college. Hedgpeth has made academics a factor in selecting players and has worked closely with teachers to keep track of athletes’ performance in the classroom.
Many of his former players have also returned to the program as coaches.
Gregorio described Hedgpeth’s legacy as one built on “integrity, character and ‘calm intensity.’”
Hedgpeth has said he would accept having the stadium named for him only with the understanding that the honor also represents the wider Watsonville soccer community and the youth coaches who have helped develop generations of Wildcat players.
In a brief comment, Hedgpeth said he was honored by the move.
Keeping Geiser’s name on the field is also intended to preserve an important piece of Watsonville High history.
School officials described the Hedgpeth Stadium-Geiser Field name as bringing that history “full circle”—honoring both the athletic director Hedgpeth approached as a student hoping to play soccer and the coach who later built one of Watsonville High’s most successful athletic programs.
