Oakland Tech coach Verdell Larkins III (pictured in 2022 file photo) was hired as Skyline coach in 2024 (Joseph Dycas/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND – Skyline's storied football program has named a longtime Oakland standout as its next head football coach.
Verdell Larkins III announced on social media that he will coach at Skyline several months after leaving Oakland Tech.
“It's an unbelievable feeling,” Larkins, 37, told Bay Area News Group Monday afternoon. “I feel like someone who played for the Raiders and then signed with the 49ers…It was a difficult decision, but I sat down and discussed it with my family.”
The Tech graduate spent 11 years as the Bulldogs' head coach, where he compiled a 53-54 record, according to MaxPreps. Larkins' Tech teams have won the last two Oakland Athletic League titles, also known as the Silver Bowl.
So why did Larkins leave a successful Tech program and be replaced by a Tech alum named Anthony McCready?
“The administration wanted to go in a different direction,” Larkins said, adding that he bears no ill will toward his alma mater.
Larkins, along with his cousin Josh Johnson and future NFL All-Pro Marshawn Lynch, were coached by Delton Edwards and won the 2003 Silver Bowl against Skyline as a player.
This was the last game in charge of the Titans by legendary coach John Beam, who went on to attend Laney College, where he is still enrolled today. Skyline was the OAL's premier team under Coach Beam from 1987 to 2003, winning 15 league championships and 160 total games.
Larkins said he speaks regularly with Beam, Laney's former coach, and considers him a mentor with whom he shares an “unbreakable bond.”
“My father coached at Oakland Tech, so I have seen the dominance of Skyline and understand the storied football history that Skyline has,” Larkins said.
Twenty years after defeating Skyline in the Silver Bowl, Larkins will be in his third season as the program's head coach. KC Adams coached the team in 2022 and Jonathan Carroll led the program in 2023. Skyline went 2-7 last season and forfeited a playoff game against McClymonds.
So what can we expect from his first season?
“I don't want to give numbers, but you can quote me when I say we're going to win right now,” Larkins said. “We’re not winning tomorrow, we’re not winning later, we’re winning now.”
Larkins never predicted the skyline would reach the heights it did in the 1990s. After all, McClymonds has yet to lose a game to an OAL opponent since 2009, even without retired coach Michael Peters.
“I feel like Mack is still going until we beat them in the Silver Bowl,” Larkins said.
