Chabot Welcomes New Football Coach

Chabot head football coach Brett McMurray basically has football in his DNA.

He played linebacker and tight end at Pleasant Valley High in Chico, Butte College, where he won a national championship in 2008, and Humboldt State.

“I started playing football when I was 7 years old,” the 34-year-old McMurray said this week. “My grandfather and my uncle were the coaches and kind of always told me they figured I would coach at some point because I always had an affinity for the X’s and O’s. Picked up the basics of football quickly. It always came kind of natural to me.

Now McMurray hopes to get things rolling quickly at Chabot. The former Gladiators’ linebackers and special teams coach in 2021 was hired to replace former head coach Eric Fanene during the offseason.

McMurray had his first official day on campus in his new role on Monday, April 21, after driving in from Chicago. He’s excited about the opportunity.

“There’s a lot of resources in place with the facilities and the location,” McMurray said of Chabot. “My vision and goals over time are to build this to mimic the four-year level.”

Fanene’s Chabot team finished 4-6 last season and 1-4 in the American Pacific-7 Conference.Fanene, who still works full time in the Chabot Athletics Department, headed the football team since 2017.

“Brett is a good man, and I’m excited to see him back with our program and grow in his position as head coach,” Fanene said.

McMurray has earned his stripes in the coaching ranks. His coaching philosophy in games amounts to four things – play great defense and great special teams, score in the Red Zone and protect the football.

“If you can do those four things, I think you’ll have success,” he says.

He coached last season at NCAA Division III Lake Forest College (Illinois), located close to the shore of Lake Michigan, as linebackers coach, special-teams coordinator and recruiting coordinator. The Foresters were 10-1 overall, 9-0 in conference. The previous two seasons he coached at Div. III Kenyon College (Ohio) as defensive coordinator in 2023 and defensive line coach in 2022, after his brief stint at Chabot.
He also has had coaching stops at Division III Sul Ross State in Alpine, Texas, and College of the Redwoods, Humboldt State, Division II Southwest Minnesota State, and Division II Bermidji State (Minnesota).

“I’ve been around, for sure,” he says. “A good chunk of my career at the four-year level is out of state. I’m from California originally, but I’ve spent some time in Texas, Ohio, Minnesota, Illinois.”

He returned to California from Texas to coach at Chabot in 2021 after the COVID shutdown season to be closer to family but returned to the four-year level in Ohio the next season.

He appears well-prepared to help Chabot players rise to the four-year level.

“I’ve played at the four-year level, played junior college ball and made that transition and it’s not easy for student-athletes to make that transition,” he says. “They say they’ve got ‘only the JUCO experience’ from their previous college, so with the resources I have available I definitely want to mimic the four-year level here as much as possible, incorporating a four-year level strength program, recruiting at a four-year level tick as far as having official visits look the right way and having all the bells and whistles for visits.”

He wants his players to be prepared properly before moving on.“The last thing you want is to be developed at the two-year level and to leave and have to re-learn how to do everything again, because it is different,” he says.

First things first, he needs to assemble a competitive team and strong staff for 2025, no small task. The plan is to have a roster where it “needs to be” with about 100 players.

“I want to be in a place where we can be competitive and play for playoff berths, play for the State Championship at some point,” he says. “I won a State Championship playing at Butte back in the day. … It just takes time and takes the right people in place, it takes work, and the right culture. It takes putting the players first and making sure they’re cared about and it’s a family environment.

“It’s easier for guys to want to play for you and care about you when they know that you’re a player-coach and you care about them. It’s a sport that’s violent and physical and if your players don’t think that you care about them, it’s going to be easier for them to not want to play the game the right way," he continued.

Clearly, he’s squeezed a lot of football into the last 27 years.
He describes himself as being “pretty unwavering in my expectations. I have a standard for a reason. If I have the recipe, I expect people to follow it as the head coach. … I would say part of my philosophy as a coach is to be relatable and be a players’ coach, but also be able to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”

The philosophy he carried as a young player was to do anything to help the team win.

A big challenge for him initially will be to assimilate in the community after spending so much time out of state. He has a network of former teammates and coaches to lean on. He believes that over time people will understand it’s not just lip service; they’ll see the work and time he puts in to help athletes succeed

“Right now, I’m the only coach really on staff,” he says. “I’m tasked with putting together a roster in the next three to four months. So probably over the last two weeks I’ve DF’d or called or texted 500 or 600 kids, which is probably the tip of the iceberg for over these next three months. The proof will be in the pudding, the work will be done. I’m committed to doing it and working tirelessly and doing it the right way.”

A mobile unit, McMurray plans to return to Illinois on May 1 to pick up his wife and daughter as the young family relocates to the East Bay. That’s a lot of driving, but Chabot’s new coach seems driven to succeed.