Before Mike Walsh became the head coach of San Pedro High School football in 1991, the Pirates were a considered afterthought by so-called 'experts' in the CIF-Los Angeles City Section, a program that didn't have a section title, just a handful of league titles, and were always the whipping boy to perennial powers Carson & Banning of Wilmington.

25 years later, the Pirates became one of the more feared teams in the City Section and among the top contenders year in, and year out. 

On this past Friday afternoon, Walsh has stepped down from his post as head coach after piling up an astounding record of 227 wins, 74 losses and 2 ties, one of those ties was the infamous 21-21 draw in the CIF-LACS Division I final with rival Narbonne of Harbor City on December 13, 2008 where Walsh, in one easy to make decision, basically changed the CIF-LACS football rulebook.

When Barry Heads threw the dramatic 15-yard touchdown pass to Benny Weischedel with no time left to cut the Gauchos' lead to 21-20, Walsh elected to kick the PAT, which Donald Jarrin made with ease. The irony on that decision was that the CIF-LACS at the time did not have an overtime procedure in place, and it netted a share of the City title for both San Pedro and Narbonne.

The CIF-LACS changed that rule four months later on what ended up being the last of Walsh's five CIF-LACS crowns.

Walsh started his coaching run at San Pedro in 1981, nine years after graduating from the school, as a junior varsity assistant coach, then in ten years time, he became the junior varsity coach, then a varsity assistant before finally replacing the late Henry Pacheco as the varsity coach in 1991.

After Walsh's first year, San Pedro had two long losing streaks to put to a halt, one of which happened in Walsh's second season, where the Pirates rallied from a 21-6 deficit to defeat Banning, 22-21 in 1992, ending a 19-year losing streak where the majority of the losses were in lopsided fashion. That 1992 team ended up as CIF-LACS Division 3A champions, the first in Walsh's second season at the helm, and first for the school as a whole.

1993 took it a little step further when San Pedro ended a 25-year losing streak to Carson with a hard-fought 10-7 victory at Gardena High, upending the eventual CIF-LACS Division 4A champions and rolling to a repeat 3A crown, getting everyone anointing the Pirates as the TRUE City champion that year.

The most telling thing about that win over Carson in 1993 was, that was only the second time and first since 1968 that San Pedro ever defeated the Colts.

Probably Walsh's best coaching job in many people's eyes came in 1996.

After a heart-breaking loss to Dorsey in their first ever Division 4A final in 1995, Walsh had a determined capable team that took on the mantra of "Losing Is Not An Option", and even his returning quarterback Melvin Yarbrough predicted at the start of 1996 that the Pirates would flat out run the table.

Sure enough, San Pedro did just that by going 14-0 in 1996, defeating another previously unbeaten Taft of Woodland Hills team, 22-20 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to cap off the school's only undefeated & untied team in over a century's worth of history.

The 1997 San Pedro team had the most difficult run of ANY team, as a No.6 seed of the Division 4A playoffs, even with a sparkling 9-1 record, and having to not only face Narbonne in the first round, but three straight undefeated teams in Fremont, Westchester and finally Taft in a championship rematch. Somehow, the Pirates toppled Narbonne, Fremont and Westchester by a combined 12 points, with the semifinal win over Westchester coming in a double overtime 100-yard 'Mud Bowl', before crushing Taft, 24-9 to repeat as champion.

There have been other special teams in Walsh's 25-year tenure at San Pedro, with the 2005 Marine League championship team, 2006 CIF-LACS Division I runner-up and 2011 Marine League championship teams (also a perfect 10-0 regular season that year) being among that list, but the run Walsh had in the 1990's was nothing short of legendary.

Walsh has produced a bunch of players who ended up being CIF-LACS Player Of The Year either overall, or by positions, such as Bryan Castaneda (1993), Melvin Yarbrough (1996), Holman Wiggins (1997), Alonzo Lefridge (2008, Defensive), Kristopher Bass (2010, Defensive), Kenny Potter (2011, Offensive), Pete Palacios (2013, Defensive), Chris Alvidrez (2014, Defensive) and Mike Spinosa (2014, Lineman). 

A lot of other notable players that played massive roles in San Pedro's success under Walsh's leadership includes the likes of Heads, Rino Marconi, Chris Pappas, Jeff Williams, Steve Smith, Jomar Butler, Travis White, Ryan Solomona, Dominic Furio, the late Mario Danelo, Johnny & Michael Whitt, Zack Heberer, Robert Franco and in recent years, Darrell 'Deejay' Santiago, Dominic O'Brien & Antonio 'A.J.' Frazier Jr.

Plus, one of Walsh's former quarterbacks is Dustin Garneau (2003-2004), who's now playing Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Colorado Rockies. Also his two sons Brian, now a minor league baseball umpire, and Corey, have also played during his 25-year run at Pirate football coach.

In all, Walsh has produced ten Marine League titles, outright or shared, with his last one coming in 2014 which was a three-way shared title with both Narbonne and Carson.