Former Shoreline student interviewed on ESPN for his work with inner-city kids

Masaki Matsumoto

Former Shoreline student Masaki Matsumoto made a big impact in the lives of students in a depressed California neighborhood when he was the high school football coach at Bernstein High.

According to ESPN MediaZone,

The Dragons of Helen Bernstein High School play football in the shadow of the iconic Hollywood sign. But for the team’s players, there is very little glamour. Eighty-one percent of Bernstein's students rely on the school’s free lunch program, and most of the players hail from Los Angeles’ toughest neighborhoods. 

Gangs, drugs, and broken families are constants in the lives of these teenagers, and a constant concern for their head coach, Masaki Matsumoto. 

So Matsumoto felt he had to try something daring to help them. In the summer of 2013, he asked all the parents of his players to write handwritten letters of love to their children, detailing how much they are cared for and why they matter. 

E:60’s Chris Connelly details the impact these letters had and how it echoed across the football field, the classroom, and into the players’ homes.

According to a story in The Seattle Times, Matsumoto compiled a 29-8 overall record at Bernstein, a school that had gone a combined 4-36 since it opened in 2008 before he arrived in 2012.

See the one-minute trailer here as players read parts of their letters.

Masaki Matsumoto attended Echo Lake Elementary and Kings Middle and High Schools, graduating in 2002.

When King's Schools named him their Distinguished Alumni of 2014, they said

"In 2013, Masaki was named the Coach of the Year in the Central League and also, due to all of the accomplishments on and off the field, he was awarded the LA Times' Football Coach of the Year."

The full interview will be shown on ESPN's newsmagazine E-60, Wednesday, October 14, 2015. Comcast channel 173 at 5pm.

ESPN has been filming about him and his team for one and a half years, after he was on the front page of LA Times, November 2013.

In that LA Times story, Bernstein said,

"If your goal is to win, you're never going to fulfill that every year," he said. "But if your goal is to change lives and be a positive impact on them and help them become better people, then I believe that's a win, and the wins on the scoreboard will come with that."

Now back in the Northwest, he is a teacher and head football coach in Lincoln High School in Tacoma and his team is undefeated.

Updated with broadcast information 10-13-2015