Piedmont High School has fired girls soccer coach Dan Chubbock, one of the most popular and successful coaches at the school. No explanation was given.
“It’s not mutual,” Chubbock said. “I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to keep working with the program.”
Highlanders athletic director Tyler Small emailed a statement to the Exedra:
“Piedmont High School Athletics is dedicated to providing the best coaches for all teams each season,” the statement read. “Coaches are hired on a seasonal basis and contracts are renewed yearly for coaches returning. At the end of each season we evaluate each program’s success with the intent of ensuring the best coaches are in place to support our student athletes on and off the playing field.”
He did not respond to the emailed question, “Why was Dan Chubbock fired?”
Piedmont has fired multiple coaches in recent years. Football coach Jerome Johnson was fired after the 2021 season. Track and field and cross country coach Jeanine Holmlund was fired after the 2022 cross country season.
The girls soccer team was beset by illness and injury during the 2024-25 season, finishing with a 7-10-2 record. The Highlanders still made the North Coast Section Division 4 playoffs, where they lost to Pinole Valley in the second round despite holding the No. 1 seed. Ten matches ended with a one-goal differential or less, with Piedmont going 2-6-2. In 2022-23, Piedmont won the NCS Division 4 championship, the school’s first since 2002-03. In 17 seasons, the Highlanders went 174-100-39 under Chubbock. They made three NCS finals and earned a playoff berth every season playoffs were held (the 2021 season had no playoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Chubbock said he was told by Small on March 27 he would not be back. “The sad thing is, in my 17 years, most athletic directors last only a year or two,” Chubbock said, referring to the multiple athletic directors that have passed through Piedmont in recent years. Small is in his first year as athletic director.
“I worked with him, I thought, well,” Chubbock said. “I wasn’t given any signs that anything was wrong. One thing Tyler said was the numbers were dwindling. The focus was too much on winning. That’s always been the focus in the varsity program.”
Rebecca Thornborrow’s daughter Juliana was a senior on this year’s team. She has written a letter that she is circulating among a group of parents to present to principal David Yoshihara.
“We are writing to express our shock, disappointment, and anger over the non-renewal of Dan Chubbock’s contract after 17 years of service to Piedmont High School,” the letter reads. “Our daughters play on his varsity girls’ soccer team and have found him to be a skilled, successful, and compassionate coach.” It also reads, “He is professional, kind, and dedicated, and does not deserve to be treated so poorly after nearly two decades of service.”
The letter concludes, “We very much would like to see Dan return as varsity coach next year and feel his dismissal was unwarranted as well as a huge loss for Piedmont.”
Chubbock is also the Director of Coaching for the Piedmont Soccer Club and the head women’s coach at Chabot College, which plays in the fall.