Aptos High last week announced that Johnny Velez was named the new head coach for both the boys’ and girls’ wrestling teams.
The 31-year-old Aptos High alum is replacing long time coach Rudy Guzman who retired at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Guzman was an anchor in the wrestling program for the past 24 years where he started as a student-athlete before immediately transitioning into an assistant coach. He was the head coach for the past eight years following the departure of Reggie Roberts in 2018.
Velez is just the fourth head coach since Nick Richards—who coached Roberts and Guzman—stepped down in 1997.
“It’s kind of like we all came from the same coaching tree. It’s all been one big family, we’re all keeping the same mentality,” Velez said.
Aptos Athletic Director Travis Fox said there were several strong candidates for the job. Yet, it was Velez who had ultimately had a tremendous amount of support from the local wrestling community, both past and present.
“[Velez] cares about the kids and he cares about the program, and takes a lot of pride in it,” Fox said. “I think he’s going to be able to bring some consistency, right off the bat, in just the way the room’s been working there.”
Velez already jumped right into work by hosting “open mats” for student-athletes gearing up for the 2024-25 winter season. He also made a Costco run this week to pick up some snacks for them.
Fox said that Velez’s local ties, and just the fact he grew up in wrestling, means a lot to Velez.
“That was definitely an extreme positive, having someone who’s familiar with the room, familiar with our community, and also is going to have that full community support from Day 1, that was that was huge,” Fox said.
Fox also likes the fact that for Velez it doesn’t come down to capturing league titles or just winning.
“I think he gets that,” Fox said. “We’re going to give it the best we got, but also balance the entire student-athlete in the process.”
Velez, who is a warehouse manager in Salinas, graduated in 2010 but he hasn’t left the campus since he took a job as a wrestling assistant coach. He comes from a strong wrestling family that is rooted in Aptos.
How deep one may ask.
His mother, Rosemary, is the unofficial team grandma that is in charge of keeping the snack shack fully stocked.
Velez was a Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League wrestling champion in 2009 and a two-time league finalist. He was also named the wrestling program’s most valuable player for the 2010 season.
He was also a stud on the football team, earning all-county team honors as a lineman and the school’s weightlifter of the year in 2009.
The thought of becoming the next wrestling head coach never crossed Velez’s mind. His goal was to simply be part of a wrestling family that gave him a lot while he attended Aptos. It gave him an outlet, friends and lifelong mentors to live up to.
“People to call and lean on when I needed it, giving me so much that I knew that I had to give back,” Velez said. “As a kid without direction back then, my head coach gave me a lot.”
At the time Roberts was the head coach and Guzman was right under him as an assistant.
“It was just such a special tradition of people that held themselves to such a high standard that I just wanted to give the next gen the same kind of feeling,” Velez said. “My biggest deal is the kids learn a lot from me and our coaching staff in life, not just wrestling. A lot of these things that we teach at Aptos, I use every day in my life with my family.”
The biggest goal for Velez moving forward is retaining wrestlers from freshman to their senior year. He hates seeing a drop off because student-athletes get burnt out or dislike either the sport or environment of the team.
That’s where his second goal comes into place as Velez is attempting to create a family-type atmosphere for athletes who will enjoy the journey together.
“I like seeing them hanging out after practice, together and communicating and reaching out to each other,” he said. “I want them to stick around all four years and to be a family inside and out of the [wrestling] room.”
Velez called this opportunity a true blessing. He said everything that’s led him to this point of his coaching career is thanks to all the support around him.
“It means a lot to have everybody around me that’s seen me grow say, ‘Yes Johnny, you’re the right person for the job,’” he said.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that former Aptos High wrestling head coach Nick Richards stepped down in 1998, which is incorrect. Richards stepped down in 1997. The story also stated that Richards coached Johnny Velez, which is also incorrect.
