It was the second half of the Oct. 17 football game at Fullerton stadium. Marina’s offense was scoreless and frustrated. Even so, it was crazy that a Viking player chose to give Fullerton’s Maeson Washington a forceful yet legal takedown. Washington, at 6’4 and 290 pounds, reacted by shoving back—with both hands—earning the Indians a 15-yard penalty.

“I get wrapped up by my waist and swung over, and the first thing I see is a Marina guy, so I turn around and push him back,” he said.

Fullerton head coach Pete Karavedas immediately pulled Maeson from the field. Spectators could see Coach K grab the lineman’s jersey and grab his full attention: “That’s not who we are! … What were you thinking?” 

Maeson walked to the film bench with his head down, believing he would sit out the rest of the night. But soon after, Coach K yelled down the sideline looking for Maeson; he needed him back in for the remainder of the game. Fullerton walked away with a 21-0 win—the team’s third shutout of the season.

Moments like these show how Pete Karavedas has turned a struggling team into winners. It’s because Coach K believes in teaching players not punishing them.

A player who just got chewed out by his coach might be resentful, but not Maeson. “I felt a little dumb. It was just, I was disappointed in myself,” he said. “After Coach K talked to me I realized that it’s the in-the-moment things I need to work on. If, say, Marina was a really tough team, a flag like that could have been the difference between us winning and losing.”

Maeson’s self-reflection is a direct result of the genuine relationships that Karavedas has established with his players. Without love and care at the core, Karavedas’s words would not weigh so heavily nor be as well-received.

Tonight the Indians (6-2, 2-1) will travel to Buena Park High School to face cross-town rival Sunny Hills (6-2, 2-1). The game could decide which team secures a second place finish in the Lambda League and a spot in the CIF playoffs.

The Tribe’s strong defense will need to contain Lancer quarterback Mikael Khan who has thrown 21 touchdown passes this year. Besides being a key game for a strong league finish, playing against the Lancers has a special meaning for Karavedas, who was the head football coach at Sunny Hills from 2013-2021. In 2019 Karavedas led the Lancers to a CIF Championship and was named CIF Coach of the Year as well as the OC Register Coach of the Year.

For his first year coaching at Fullerton High School, Karavedas has made it a priority to change the narrative of the football program.

“On day one of when I met these guys, our goal was to go from an 0-10 season to playoffs within one year. So even when they do pushups, they do 11 sets–because we wanna play on Week 11–which is the playoffs,” Karavedas said.

With that Week 11 playoff goal now within reach, the team has seen not only an incredible shift in their technical execution of the game, but also a transformation in team culture.

Many players describe this year’s season as one filled with respect, accountability, and discipline. For the coaching staff, the program goes beyond simply playing football–it is about raising a generation of men who go into the world to impact others in a positive way.

According to head offensive coach Kevin Oberlander, this is one of the biggest reasons he chose to leave his previous school to coach alongside Karavedas this year.

“The football program for him is really not about football,” Oberlander said. “It’s about developing young men and that’s why I’m drawn to coaching alongside him. He’s built a culture of guys working hard–not just for themselves but for the entire team.”

Not only is the coaching staff for Fullerton football uniquely tight-knit under Karavedas’s leadership, but there are also many familial ties. Pete’s own father, Nick Karavedas (otherwise known as “Papa K”) is the varsity defensive back coach. They are not the only father-son duo on the team, however. Outside linebacking coach Jesse Smith and his son Jonoven Smith, the wide receiving coach, also work alongside one another.

After speaking to Papa K about his son’s accomplishments as an admired coach and mentor, he could only express his overflowing pride: “I just couldn’t be more proud of him. You know, he’s having an amazing year. He’s been laser focused about really trying to bless and serve the Fullerton community. He’s creating the narrative, ‘Hey, there are a lot of good people here, there are a lot of talented boys, there’s good support staff, there’s great parents, there are great boosters.’”

Many coaches, including Coach Oberlander, decided to follow Coach Karavedas to Fullerton to continue working with him. “I would say Coach K’s number one strength as a person is developing strong relationships. And that’s a testament to why there’s so many people over here with him because he’s built good relationships,” Oberlander said.

“He’s a really great husband and father which is something that we teach and preach to our kids cause one day they’re probably going to be in the same boat,” added Oberlander. “He’s also a really good teacher. And if you talk to his students who aren’t even athletes, they love him.”

“The love piece is a really fun thing because high school football players aren’t taught to love each other very much. You know, it’s supposed to be a tough guy sport. And so we blend those two,” Oberlander said. “We coach our kids really hard and we are tough on them, but at the end of the day, it’s about loving each other. It’s about your teammate being more important than you, which creates a really cool culture to be around.”

Players told the Tribe Tribune that they appreciate the way Coach K respects them as individuals and how he even respects their time. He meticulously plans each practice with specific goals. Senior Caden Wise said the assistant coaches each follow a detailed script for each practice. “They run practice and if we’re behind then we have to speed it up,” Wise said. “If we’re ahead, that means we’ve executed everything well.”

Senior Logan Vasquez appreciates how structured practices are this year. “It’s like there’s an objective for that practice. If we reach the goal we can leave early, but we might stay later until we reach the goal,” Vasquez said.

Vasquez also says he’s noticed the way the assistant coaches actually enjoy working with each other. “You don’t see assistant coaches butting heads like on some teams. They’re always on the same page,” Vasquez said. “When one coach has input for another coach, they genuinely respect and listen to each other. The cooperation you see with the coaches has trickled down to the players.”

Social studies teacher Rob Ryan is the JV football coach and an assistant varsity coach. 

“We’ve got tremendous buy-in from the players and I think that’s the key aspect of coaching the players–to believe what the coaches’ plan is and what our program’s about,” Ryan said. “A united front starts with the head coach’s leadership, and Coach Karavedas has excellent leadership. We want to execute his goals and his outlook for this program.”

Karavedas has also earned players’ respect by making smart choices. To make his offense less predictable, he moved away from a spread offense toward a wing T, allowing him to best combine the Indian’s running and passing game.

Vasquez said: “Once the opponent adapts to what we’re doing, we’ll just do something completely different. Even if they watch film on our previous game, we’ll come out and line up a different way and it throws them off. So we sometimes have completely different things that we’ve never done on film.”

Wise says that Karavadas’s smarts have improved the team’s confidence. “He knows how to run the offense he wants,” Wise said. “I think he instilled confidence starting last spring and through the summer. He taught us to have confidence in the calls that we make.”

Wise says that he’s especially seen that confidence grow in teammate Logan Vasquez. “Last year Logan didn’t seem like he had confidence like he has this year. He was kind of timid. He was scared to mess up, but then this year it’s like he’s confident in everything he does, and even if he messes up, he just gets coached up on what he did wrong and he changes it for the next play,” Wise said. “Logan has really emerged as a leader on the offensive line.”

Karavedas was not satisfied with improving by small increments. Setting a goal to make it to CIF following a 0-10 season proved to players he was willing to work as hard as he expected them to work. His confidence in his players in turn made the players feel confident in themselves.

“When we took this program over, we said our goal is not a three-year rebuild where we maybe win three or four games and then we win five games and then maybe we win seven or eight games the third year,” Karavedas said. “We said we want to win seven or eight games right away. And we think that we can do that.”

Vasquez said: “I feel like we’re finally getting results from all the work we’ve put in. Of course, everybody works hard every year, but I feel like this year, since we started with a winning mindset, all the working together and positive attitudes have paid off.”

The Fullerton football program is anchored by three tenets: integrity, team before self, and excellence in all we do. Among the varsity coaches, there is one consistent message: coaches are responsible for guiding players toward those ideals.

“Something I tell the guys is don’t be a jerk on campus and then hope that people come to watch you play on Friday night,” Karavedas said. “Be the type of guy that people want to go root for.”

Reporter Dylan Cobbs contributed to this story.