‘Special place to be’: Walser keeps Manteca High safe

Jerry Walser has been part of Manteca High for more than 20 years, starting off as a junior varsity football coach in 2000 and becoming a full-time campus monitor and head athletic trainer for the varsity football team in 2013. (Moises Ramos/The Tower)

By DARIO RODRIGUEZ   
The Tower  

With the heart of the Buffalo and the mind of a coach, Jerry Walser is a well-known staff member at Manteca High School.   

Walser has been part of Manteca High for more than 20 years, starting off as a junior varsity football coach in 2000 and becoming a full-time campus monitor and head athletic trainer for the varsity football team in 2013. Walser hopes to change the lives of students at Manteca High in a positive way.   

“The best part about Manteca is the culture and the environment,” he said. “I think Manteca High is a special place to be … Obviously I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t enjoy it. Being here is more than just a job to me and I bleed green.”

Walser is an impactful staff member at Manteca High School, who continuously provides campus security and student safety, in hopes to help students to grow and mature in life.   

A campus monitor’s key duties include campus security and student safety. However, Walser aspires to be more than that. Students make up the most of any school’s population and Walser says that the interactions with students and helping them is his favorite part of the job. He does his best to treat each student with respect and equality, as well as holding his football players to a higher standard and making sure they are putting the student in student-athlete.   

Walser’s biggest goal on campus is to one day help a student out enough to where they could eventually come back and tell him that he helped them become the person who they are.  

Jerry Walser has been part of Manteca High for more than 20 years, starting off as a junior varsity football coach in 2000 and becoming a full-time campus monitor and head athletic trainer for the varsity football team in 2013. (Moises Ramos/The Tower)

Being a campus isn’t the only occupation that Walser has dabbled in.  Starting back in high school, Walser began working with heating and air conditioning and once he got into college, he would do that during the summer along with being a bouncer. All the while, he played football at Chico State.   

After college, Walser continued being a bouncer and got his first coaching job at Pleasant Valley High School for a few years before moving back to the valley to coach at East Union.

Walser took on his first campus monitoring job in the late 1990s at Ripon High and worked in the wine industry for a year while doing so. He came to Manteca High School in 2000 to coach, while continuing his role as a campus monitor at Ripon. In 2010, Walser became a full-time Buffalo and began campus monitoring at Manteca High School. 

The key moments that have made Manteca High School so special to Walser have been being part of all nine of football’s Sac-Joaquin Section championship teams and starting the school’s student athletic trainer program.   

Changing the lives of students is part of the job for any school staff member, whether it’s through academics, athletics, or other endeavors. Walser’s experience with coaching and campus monitoring allows him to connect with many aspects of life, which allows him to connect and positively impact students.  

“I’d like to think my presence and dealing with students has helped them mature and become better people,” he said. “Every once in a while, you get a student that comes back and gives you a thanks and says, ‘I appreciate you and what you did to help me.’ It’s what makes the job rewarding.”