The562’s coverage of football in 2024-25 is sponsored by The Terry Donahue Memorial California Showcase.
This month, there will be a handful of very different first meetings for Long Beach high school football teams and their new coaches. On Monday in the Jordan Auditorium, new Panthers coach Alfred Rowe delivered a clear message to his team in their first meeting.
“This is the North Side, and the pride is here,” Rowe said. “My job is to create that pride in football so people don’t want to (go to other schools) and they stay and play football here. That’s the goal. I’m trying to build a wall around the North Side. It’s building a football family.”
Rowe comes into his first head coaching job with a ton of Moore League football experience under his belt. He was an All-League co-Defensive Player of the Year at Long Beach Poly in 2005, and over the last decade he’s been an assistant coach at Wilson, Cabrillo, and Millikan. Rowe started his first speech to a few dozen returning Jordan players by talking about how he’s been where they want to go.
After playing at Poly, Rowe was part of two Rose Bowl winning teams at USC under Pete Carroll.
“I can put you in position to succeed, get to college, but it’s up to you to make it happen and that starts today,” Rowe told his team.
Rowe then harped on a rededication to discipline across the program. The three rules he made sure to highlight were, “Protect the team, be early and no whining or complaining.”
After meeting with the team and answering their questions, Rowe had more interviews scheduled to fill out his coaching staff. One position already filled is offensive line coach by Rowe’s father and Jordan alum, Alfred Rowe Sr. The new staff will also need to fill four open non-league dates on their schedule, so Rowe knows he can make an immediate impact on and off the field.
“I never wanted to be a college head coach, I wanted to be a college defensive coordinator,” Rowe said of his time as an assistant in the NCAA at New Mexico Highlands and Texas A&M Kingsville. “But I always thought if I were to be a head coach it would be a high school head coach. Things just fell in line. The Jordan job opened up and something just told me, ‘That’s the place.’ I put my all into the interview and did a bunch of research and I knew I had to get this job. This is where I belong.”
Rowe added that his enthusiasm helped him during his own interview process, and is a cornerstone of his coaching style.
“There’s no walking, we’re running everywhere,” Rowe said at the end of Friday’s meeting. “Bring your cleats on Monday. We’re running. Everybody runs. Right now is when you win.”
Jordan is coming off a tumultuous 3-7 season that included a midseason coaching change. The Panthers reached the CIF Southern Section Division 11 championship game in 2021.
