Legendary Grant Pacers football coach Mike Alberghini — Coach Al — dies at 78
In 2008, as midnight approached in Carson, Mike Alberghini made sure he punctuated the greatest high school athletic achievement in Sacramento history with a parting gift.
The Grant Pacers football coach placed a school cap with a gold block G on it inside an empty Long Beach Poly locker room, about about 90 minutes after defeating the No. 3-ranked prep team in the land in the closing moments to win the CIF State championship. The man known as Coach Al explained later, “They’ll think the G stands for God or Grant, but they’ll know we were here.”
Alberghini always warned to never underestimate Grant when it came to a challenge, and California knew the Pacers had arrived in football during his decorated run. He died Wednesday from complications of a late 2022 stroke, his family confirmed to The Sacramento Bee. He was 78.
Alberghini was surrounded by family, his wife of nearly 50 years, Mary, and kids, Rob, Kelli, Kristen and Kasey. The family in a statement to The Bee said, “We appreciate the outpouring of support. We know how much Grant and the community meant to him, and as much as he gave to them as a coach and leader, they gave it right back, the essence of his life.”
Alberghini was inducted into five local or statewide Halls of Fame, including the California High School Football Hall of Fame and the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Hall of Fame.
“It’s a huge loss,” said Mike Baker, a trustee on the Twin Rivers Unified School District board. “They just don’t make legends that touch communities like that. Mike provided years of great coaching and great results. I was proud to be on that board to have Grant’s field named after him.”
Coach Al looked the part
Alberghini was the very image of a hard-driving coach and physical education teacher. With bulging blue eyes — blood shot from the sun and the grind — and a thatch of thin, graying hair, Coach Al was stocky and stern, witty and charming. He could scold with the best of them. He was a shambling prince in a T-shirt, shorts and that familiar Pacers cap as a fixture on Grant’s Del Paso Heights campus for nearly 50 years.
He connected with students of all walks, once boasting that he could curse in eight languages that he’d learned in the quad and parking lot.
He spent 23 years as Grant’s head baseball coach, winning 502 games, and the next 30 as head football coach, winning a regional-record 282 times to go with 17 league championships and seven CIF section crowns. He was a physical education instructor who was a counselor of sorts to the academic achievers, or the star athletes who would reach the NFL, and those who just needed a boost of confidence in reminding that the teenage years can be hard.
Alberghini called the girls “sweetie” and the guys “brother.” No one drove more kids home after school, after practice or after games than the old coach. Those car rides included big-picture life discussions.
“In some ways, I’m everyone’s only father figure or a reliable uncle,” Alberghini once said. “Grant kids are my kids.”
Coach Al urged football players to stop any bullying on campus, reminding, “You’re Grant Pacer. Take pride in that. Be a leader everywhere.”
Alberghini was deemed by his players too important to disappoint. They played hard for him as they rallied with a mantra that it was Grant against the world. The Pacers rose to power in 1991, Alberghini’s first year as head coach after a decade as defensive coordinator. The Pacers under Coach Al towered over the region well into the 2010s. Grant under Alberghini won 17 league championships and seven CIF Sac-Joaquin Section titles. Eight of his teams produced 10-0 regular seasons. Grant was named The Bee’s Team of the Decade for the 1990s and 2000s, and Alberghini the Coach of the Decade both times.
Grant’s field bears his name. After winning the 2008 CIF State Open title, a breakthrough for Sacramento football, Alberghini and the Pacers were given a hero’s welcome in a downtown Sacramento parade. The man of the hour waved to the crowd. Alberghini was joyous then, relaxed and at peace. During seasons, he was wired hot.
In constant motion and his voice perpetually hoarse, Alberghini chewed on referees who often took the heat because they respected the man.
“I never cursed a referee if we were on the goal line,” Alberghini once said. “I never wanted to look like a complete fool.”
Former Grant principal Craig Murray told The Bee in 2012, “Al’s our school’s Godfather. There’s just one of him. I don’t think the school would still be standing if he wasn’t still here.”
Alberghini spoke glowingly of new-era Pacers
Alberghini coached his last football games in the spring football season of 2021, after the pandemic pushed fall seasons later in the calendar. He expressed that he was worn out and needing more time with his wife of nearly 50 years, Mary.
The only thing Coach Al loved more than the Grant Pacers was family.
In a Bee interview late in the 2023 season, Alberghini spoke softly, a change from his often bombastic approach, weakened from his stroke, but he cheered up when expressing pride in his career and the legacy of the football program he nurtured to record heights.
Under co-coaches Carl Reed and Syd Thompson with a host of fellow former Pacers on staff, Alberghini from afar kept tabs of a resurgent Grant run. The Pacers are a three-time defending section champion and won CIF state crowns in 2023 and 2024, displaying Grant’s trademark penchant for big plays and big hits in championing being a city school that represents the state capital.
“I’m very happy for Grant, the coaches and players,” Alberghini said in 2023. “That coaching staff is full of former Grant players, and those kids live for that school.”
Reed, the current Grant coach, calls his mentor “the GOAT,” as in the greatest of all time. It took a unique leader to coach, and Alberghini was that man, Reed said.
Alberghini kept his good spirit well after the stroke, quick with the one-liners. He stressed that he had a long road ahead but that he will be OK.
“Live healthy and pray hard,” Alberghini said his motto was in 2023. “I didn’t take care of myself as well as I should have all those years as a coach, and I never ate well, especially on game day. You just push yourself so hard as a coach. I put too much on myself as a coach and not enough about being healthy. But I’ve got Mary.”
He added, “I’m happier than I was before the stroke. I realize how important Mary is in my life. I’m a lucky man.”
Regional support after player death
Alberghin was a baseball kid growing up, having never played a down of football. He played infield at Mira Loma High School and all over the field at Sacramento State in the late 1960s, mentored by Hornets coach Cal Boyes, who urged Alberghini to get into teaching and coaching. Alberghini started in the Grant Unified School District as a 23-year old and never seriously considered a change of pace.
“Cal was my mentor,” Alberghini once said. “He convinced me that I could graduate, that it would give me something for life. He’s the one who taught me that you’ve got to give to kids if you want kids to give to you.
“I wanted to be at a school where I could help kids, to make an impact. I loved my time at Grant. I loved how hard we played. We were blue collar, and it’s important that city schools have success. I loved that we did that.”
Alberghini’s impact on the regional game was never more pronounced than in November of 2015.
When popular Pacer football player J.J. Clavo was randomly shot by a troubled teenager across town while driving three teammates for a quick food run hours before a home playoff game, a teammate took the wheel of the car and hustled right back to Grant. Not to the hospital, but to campus, where the players knew Alberghini would be there to help.
Clavo died in Alberghini’s arms.
The playoff game was rescheduled for the following Monday night at Grant. Coaches and players from more than 50 area schools lined the field before the kickoff, everyone in their own uniforms, a sea of bowed heads. It was a moving moment and reminder that the region was there to stand with the Clavo family, the Grant community and Coach Al.
“If someone told me that Alberghini was the greatest football coach this area has ever seen, I’m not sure I have an argument against that,” former Elk Grove and Sheldon coach Chris Nixon said in 2023. “I have a hard time thinking of any coach I’ve coached against who I’ve admired more.
“The respect was always there for how he sustained a great program for so long under sometimes unimaginable circumstances. Elk Grove and what seemed like every other program was there for Mike and his team on that Monday night to honor JJ Clavo. That was how much area communities loved him and Grant High School.”
Alberghini in 2023 said that show of support moved him to tears, and he shared many a hug with Clavo’s mother, Nicole.
“It’s why you coach — to help out, to be there for young people,” Alberghini said in his final public interview. “When I think about it, I know I was really fortunate to be in the right place, the right school for me, the kind of kids I loved to coach and needed to coach. A lot of great times and people and memories. I’ll remember that the most. I’ll remember it until the day I die.”
Coach Al by the numbers
A peek at Grant coach Mike Alberghini’s football legacy:
1 — In his heart of greatest joys: his family
5 — State or area halls of fame inducted to
7 — CIF section championships
8 — Number of 10-0 regular seasons
17 — League championships
502 — Baseball wins as head coach
282 — Football wins, a regional record
2008 — Year of CIF State Open championship
2014 — Alberghini’s last great team, at 14-1
This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 7:42 PM.