State Coach of Year: Kelly Sopak

The head coach of CIF Division I state champion Carondelet of Concord has been named the 2025 Cal-Hi Sports State Coach of the Year for girls basketball. However, Kelly Sopak’s ascension to joining a group of coaches honored by Cal-Hi Sports dating back to 1972 for the top honor for girls high school coaches in the Golden State has been a bit unusual.

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For more than 20 years, Kelly Sopak has been generally regarded as a top coaching talent in California girls hoops, but in some respects he hasn’t gotten the same accolades from a high school standpoint. That is changing now as the head coach of the CIF Division I state champion Carondelet of Concord squad has been selected as the 2025 State Coach of the Year by Cal-Hi Sports.

Since 1972 there have only been five coaches from the CIF North Coast Section to be named State Coach of the Year. The last honoree was Stephen Pezzola in 2022 from Salesian of Richmond. Two have been from Berkeley, Spike Hensley in 1980 and in 1991 it was legendary Gene Nakamura. The late Scott Brown of Campolindo (Moraga) won in 1995, and in 2009 Ron Hirschman from Danville Monte Vista was the award winner.

Sopak took a 2016 Miramonte team that starred current WNBA superstar Sabrina Ionescu and was 32-0 heading into the CIF Open Division state championship, and despite Sabrina recording the only triple-double in a CIF state championship title game, whose face resembled a beet in the post-game press conference as hard as she played, his Matadors fell short in a loss to Chaminade of West Hills.

While Ionescu has gone on to WNBA stardom and multiple TV commercials, the latest with her alongside Shaq, Sopak has been mostly regarded as a top club coach due to his success with the Cal Stars he founded in 2006. Ionescu is the top player ever to come out of the Cal Stars program, but according to Sopak the program has amazingly produced close to 350 players that have gone on to play in college, and whose top Nike EYBL team he still coaches today. The Cal-Stars have captured three club national championship teams, including one starring Ionescu, who he started coaching beginning when she was an adolescent.

The irony of Sopak’s saga is despite all that national success on the AAU circuit, the veteran high school head coach has been flying under the radar in some respects. During an interview he admitted being honored to join a select few girls hoops coaches in California history to win 500 games, but it went virtually unnoticed until Carondelet slipped past Salesian of Richmond in a 66-65 MLK Day victory in January that notched his 500th career coaching win.

Now, after a 30-6 season, the first 30-win season in the long history of Carondelet girls basketball, the 56-year-old Sopak has a 516-85 career record. According to the Cal-Hi Sports Online Record book, that puts Sopak in the No. 38 spot all-time for career coaching wins.

Not only that, but now in his second shot at a CIF state championship, and not including 2016, making it to three NorCal championship games in four years in both Division I and Open divisions, Sopak has cashed in. Besides earning the state’s top honor for a girls basketball coach, his Cougars delivered him and the Carondelet community a state championship, the first for Sopak and the second in five tries for Carondelet with the only other title coming in the old enrollment based Division II in 2004 on a team that starred former Stanford and WNBA star and current WNBAPA Senior Vice President of Player Relations Jayne Appel when she was a Cougars’ sophomore.

“The championship team of 2004 means so much to our school and community it makes me happy that this group now gets to share in that glory,” said Sopak in wanting to focus on the team when asked about his personal achievements this season.

“I’m just so happy for the players and the school. The players committed and bought in to the culture our staff set for this program five years ago,” Sopak continued. “To make three NorCal championships in four years in both D1 and Open, it was nice to finally break through and bring a state title back to the Carondelet campus.”

In a bit of a strange twist, Sopak wasn’t even a basketball player in high school or college. He grew up just outside of Tacoma, Washington in Puyallup and attended Bethel High in nearby Spanaway. At Bethel, he starred in baseball and football before attending the University of Nevada where his baseball career was cut short due to injuries.

After college, Sopak began a career as a State Farm insurance broker in Reno and his career path involved travel before he married local Bay Area native Beverly in Piedmont in 1997 and moved his State Farm practice to the East Bay in 2000 where the couple settled and raised their two daughters. Lauren Sopak, the oldest, who was a classmate of Ionescu at Miramonte, and also went to Oregon where Ionescu starred in college, works for the Nike TOC and is also on the Board of Directors of the West Coast Jamboree. Leah Sopak is also a Miramonte grad and Mats’ player who is currently a grad assistant at TCU.

After deciding on settling in and raising his and Beverly’s family in Contra Costa County he got involved with coaching in 2000 by helping out coaching his nieces in CYO and rec leagues in the Orinda Youth Association. Sopak eventually took an assistant’s job at Walnut Creek Northgate under head coach Mark Bucklew. When Bucklew retired after the 2004-2005 season, and after two years as an assistant, took the Northgate reins starting in the 2005-2006 season and the rest is history.

“I always liked basketball and Mark was a friend and I was helping him out,” remarked Sopak, who besides coaching high school and club, and running a successful insurance practice, is also on the board of directors of the 501C-3 and management team of the West Coast Jamboree. “I found the competitive nature of it kind of filled that competitive void.

“Not having a ton of experience with basketball I really had to learn a lot about it,” Sopak continued. “I watched videos, TV, and more importantly I went to a lot of games and clinics and sought out people I deemed that were successful. Later on, when I started coaching high school it was college coaches I sought out. I went to college coaches practices, everywhere, including UConn to Oregon to Washington plus a lot of others.”

At Northgate, Sopak compiled a 94-20 in four years, including three league titles and two section runner-up finishes. His success did not go unnoticed in Contra Costa County and beginning with the 2009-2010 season he took the Miramonte job in his hometown of Orinda and the success continued. Sopak’s Mats’ teams won seven league titles before going independent, five CIF North Coast Section titles and one NorCal title, and the success went beyond the Ionescu years. During her four years, Miramonte was 119-9 but the year before her arrival they were 31-2 and 31-4 the year after she graduated. All told in 11 seasons at Miramonte Sopak had a 304-40 record.

The first year at Carondelet was a tough one to have to start out in as it was 2020-2021 and COVID took its toll. Even so, Carondelet posted a 10-1 record. Now, after four additional years at the Cougars’ helm, his record at Carondelet stands at 118-25 with one league, one NCS and one NorCal and state championship.

Coaching a team to a state championship takes the kind of top-notch abilities Sopak possesses, but it also takes players, and he had some very talented ones with nine returning next season. The top two are college recruits, junior wing Layla Dixon (13.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 4.1 apg and 3.2 spg) and junior combo guard Sophia Ross (13.6 ppg, 4.0 apg). A third player that is beginning to get college interest is 6-foot-1 sophomore power forward Celeste Alvarez (9.8 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 3.8 apg, 2.4 bpg).

Receiving the ultimate honor for a high school basketball coach in California would not be complete without his prize pupil chiming in, and what she had to say pretty exemplifies Sopak’s coaching career.

“Kelly shaped me into the basketball player and person I am today,” texted Ionescu, taking time out of her busy schedule to give a shoutout to Sopak. “Continuing to pour into me at a young age, believe in me and never letting me settle.

“He taught me life’s lessons and to do whatever it takes to win,” Sabrina continued. “He believes in you more than you believe in yourself. He’s meant so much to this community and is set out on helping young women pursue their dreams.”

There are still countless young women that hope to have their dreams come true just like Ionescu’s have, but right now, and whether he wants to boast about it or not, the dream of winning a state championship for his school and community, and being recognized as the 2025 Cal-Hi Sports State Coach of the Year for girls basketball, is a dream come true for Sopak and the entire Carondelet community.

STATE COACHES OF THE YEAR
GIRLS BASKETBALL ALL-TIME LIST
(Selected by Cal-Hi Sports)

2025 – Kelly Sopak, Concord Carondelet (30-6)
2024 – Anna Almeida, Caruthers (25-8)
2023 – Stan Delus, Etiwanda (32-3)
2022 – Stephen Pezzola,
Richmond Salesian (21-5)
2021 – Martin Woods, Corona Centennial (25-1)
2020 – Vanessa Nygaard,
Los Angeles Windward (26-7)
2019 – Alicia Komaki,
Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (33-1)
2018 – McKinsey Hadley, Gardena Serra (25-8)
2017 – Craig Campbell,
Fresno Clovis West (34-2)
2016 – Mark Lehman,
San Bernardino Cajon (27-6)
2015 – Kelli DiMuro,
West Hills Chaminade (27-4)
2014 – Doc Scheppler,
Los Altos Hills Pinewood (30-3)
2013 – Malik McCord, Oakland Bishop O’Dowd (30-3)
2012 – Terri Bamford, La Jolla Country Day (32-1)
2011 – Steve Smith, Los Angeles Windward (29-4)
2010 – Melissa Hearlihy,
North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake (34-1)
2009 – Ron Hirschman, Danville Monte Vista (29-3)
2008 – Lorene Morgan, Long Beach Millikan (28-5)
2007 – Carl Buggs, Long Beach Poly (36-1)
2006 – Brian Harrigan, San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral (30-2)
2005 – Richard Wiard, Bishop Amat (35-0)
2004 – Tom Gonsalves, Stockton St. Mary’s (32-4)
2003 – Kevin Kiernan, Fullerton Troy (31-2)
2002 – Lisa Cooper, Torrance Bishop Montgomery (28-5)
2001 – Dwayne Tubbs, Hanford (31-2)
2000 – James Anderson, Harbor City Narbonne (34-0)
1999 – Sue Phillips, San Jose Archbishop Mitty (31-0)
1998 – Jeff Sink, Brea Brea-Olinda (33-1)
1997 – Yvette Angel, Torrance Bishop Montgomery (29-3)
1996 – Mary Hauser, Santa Ana Mater Dei (29-3)
1995 – Scott Brown, Moraga Campolindo (32-3)
1994 – Mike Ciardella, Atherton Sacred Heart Prep (38-0)
1993 – Ellis Barfield, Lynwood (31-0)
1992 – Wendell Yoshida, RH Estates Peninsula (33-0)
1991 – Gene Nakamura, Berkeley (30-2)
1990 – Frank Scott, Inglewood Morningside (32-3)
1989 – Mark Trakh, Brea Brea-Olinda (31-2)
1988 – Richard Hull, Willows (26-4)
1987 – Lee Trepanier, San Diego Pt. Loma (34-0)
1986 – Van Girard, Lynwood (28-4)
1985 – Tom Campbell, Chico Pleasant Valley (28-0)
1984 – Joe Vaughan, Ventura Buena (31-0)
1983 – Larry Newman, Anderson (26-1)
1982 – Tom Pryor, Cerritos Gahr (29-5)
1981 – Art Webb, L.A. Locke (19-2)
1980 – Spike Hensley, Berkeley (29-0)
1979 – Harvey Green, Woodland Hills El Camino Real (19-0)
1978 – Joanne Kellogg, Huntington Beach (25-2)
1977 – Tami Yasuda, Fair Oaks Bella Vista (30-1)
1976 – Chuck Shively, Ventura (23-0)
1975 – Janet Balsley, San Diego Pt. Loma (34-0)
1974 – No selection
1973 – Mary Brown, Fresno San Joaquin Memorial (12-0)
1972 – Judy Hartz, Ventura Buena (8-0)

Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend