Bret Almazan-Cezar was born on November 17, 1963, in Stockton, where he resided until 1999. Stockton-educated, Bret attended elementary and middle school, Stagg High School, San Joaquin Delta College, and the University of the Pacific, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance and General Business from the Eberhart School of Business. He later achieved a Master of Arts in Coaching and Athletics Administration from Concordia University Irvine. Bret married Mimi (Troutner) in 1990, and they have a son, Jon Paul.
After UOP, Bret worked in the finance industry before becoming the volleyball coach at Lincoln High School while teaching at Tully C. Knoles School. He was the coach at Lincoln for seven seasons, from 1993-99. Among his players with the Trojans were Nicole Davis, who was a member of the silver-medal-winning USA teams at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and current Delta College volleyball coach Molly Mordaunt Hummel. Molly was on Coach Almazan-Cezar’s last three Lincoln teams when the Trojans won the CIF Northern California Championship in 1998 and 1999, and in her junior season, Lincoln was ranked sixth in the nation.
“He had a way of making you believe,” Mordaunt Hummel said of Almazan-Cezar. “He really convinced you that you can do whatever you want if you worked hard. You have to believe and trust the process.” She has incorporated much of what she learned into her program. “He had the perfect balance between competing at a high level and still having fun,” she said. “If you are not having fun, you’re not getting better.”
From 2000-2020, Bret was a math educator and the Varsity volleyball coach at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, CA. Almazan-Cezar’s teams have appeared in the CIF State Championships 16 times—twice with Lincoln and 14 with Mitty—winning 11 of Mitty’s state-record 14 championships, including six consecutive titles. While at Mitty, Almazan-Cezar was named National Coach of the Year by both MaxPreps and the American Volleyball Coaches Association in 2009, by PrepVolleyball.com in 2013, and by FloVolleyball in 2016. In 2017, he was named as the All-USA Volleyball Coach of the Year by American Family Insurance/USA Today. In 2020, Almazan-Cezar was named to MaxPreps Top 100 High School Sports Coaches.
Coach Almazan-Cezar left Mitty in 2020, and then came out of retirement to lead Granite Bay High School in Granite Bay, CA, to the 2021 Sac-Joaquin Section Championship. His career record is 899-164. Almazan-Cezar’s 899 wins and 11 state championships make him the winningest volleyball coach in California history.
