John Paye (born March 30, 1965) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

and a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

Early life

A 1983 graduate of

Menlo School Menlo School, also referred to as Menlo, is a private college preparatory school in Atherton, California, United States, across the street from Menlo Park. Menlo comprises a middle school, grades 6–8, with approximately 230 students, an ...

in Atherton, California, Paye

lettered Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, basketball, and football. In his senior year, Menlo won the

California Interscholastic Federation The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is the governing body for high school sports in the U.S. state of California. CIF membership includes both public and private high schools. Unlike most other state organizations, it does not have a ...

(CIF) Division II basketball championship. One of Paye's teammates was

Eric Reveno Eric Wendell Reveno (born March 12, 1966) is an American assistant college basketball coach at Oregon State and the former head men's basketball coach at Portland Pilots men's basketball, Portland. He was named the West Coast Conference coach of th ...

, who played with Paye on the Stanford basketball team and is currently an assistant basketball

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

College and professional career

Paye continued as a starter in football and basketball at Stanford University in the

Pac-10 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...

. With All-American John Elway moving on to the NFL, Paye won the starting job at quarterback as a true freshman in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

, and also started at point guard that year for the Cardinal basketball team; he was the last NCAA Division I athlete to start in both football and basketball as a freshman. In the

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

football season, Paye shared time at quarterback with Fred Buckley, and became the starter for the

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

and

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

season. In 1986, he led Stanford to an record and an invitation to the Gator Bowl against the

Clemson Tigers The Clemson Tigers are the athletic teams that represent Clemson University, located in Clemson, South Carolina. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level (Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) s ...

. This was Stanford's first bowl appearance in eight years, but Paye was unable to play due to a shoulder injury. Backup Greg Ennis started instead, and Stanford lost a close game, Paye was selected in the tenth round of the 1987 NFL Draft by the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

and stayed two seasons with the team, but saw no action in the regular season.

Coaching career

After leaving pro football, Paye returned to Menlo as the girls' basketball coach, coaching his sister

Kate Kate name may refer to: People and fictional characters * Kate (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Gyula Káté (born 1982), Hungarian amateur boxer * Lauren Kate (born 1981), American autho ...

. Paye guided the team to three CIF Division V state championships from He coached boys' basketball at Woodside Priory School in the season and coached girls' basketball at Notre Dame High School girls' basketball team in

Belmont, California Belmont is a city in San Mateo County in the U.S. state of California. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the San Francisco Peninsula about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. Known for its wooded hills, views of the San Franci ...

. He returned to coach girls' basketball again at Menlo School in 2008, where his team won another CIF state championship, this time in Division II, in 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Paye, John 1965 births Living people American football quarterbacks San Francisco 49ers players Stanford Cardinal football players Stanford Cardinal men's basketball players Sportspeople from Santa Clara County, California High school basketball coaches in the United States People from Atherton, California People from Stanford, California Players of American football from California American men's basketball players Point guards