By Tim Peterson
With COVID-19 wiping out the 2020 Fall Football season and reducing it to just a five game campaign in the Spring one would think that every school is set for this Fall when it comes to their head coach. Just go with the guy that was on the sidelines in the Spring and go from there right? A head coach isn’t going to be replaced based on four of five games correct? Think again.
According to EightLaces.org as of May 5 there were no less than 37 schools looking for a head football coach in Southern California including eight on the local scene. It may have flown under the radar but Ted Clarke stepped down at Gladstone before the season got underway back in March. Darren Spence, who had yet to coach his first game at Azusa resigned earlier this year and Sergio Villasenor and Matt Villasenor resigned as co-head coaches at Sierra Vista after the final spring game.
Mark Verti was surprisingly let go at Rancho Cucamonga and as was Josh Cronkite at Chino Hills. And on it goes… Here’s a list of the local schools currently searching for head coaches as well as the previous head coach.
Gladstone: Out: Ted Clarke
Azusa: Out – Darren Spence
Santa Fe: Out- Dave Pierson
St. Francis: Out – Ted Corcoran (Interim)
Sierra Vista: Out- Sergio Villasenor/ Matt Villasenor
Buena Park: Out – Dustin Sober
Chino Hills: Out – Josh Cronkite
Rancho Cucamonga: Out- Mark Verti
Pioneer: Out – Steve Randall
San Marino: Out – Justin Mesa
Temple City: Out – Riley Saxon
Others:
Orange Lutheran: Out – JP Presley
Wilson (Long Beach): Out- Mark Ziegenhagen
Centennial/Compton: Out – Adam Leonard
Verbum Dei: Out – Marcus Bowling
Canyon (Anaheim): Out- Mark Ogas
St. Bernards: Out- Manny Douglas
Katella: Out – Jason Hitchens
Grace Brethren: Out: Josh Henderson
Note: Am I missing anybody on the local front? Feel free to let me know.
@ Anon:In case you can’t read I clearly stated the fix. After some chosen deadline let out of district transfers be admitted on a first come first serve basis and list published of every student out of district request and the results. Any new openings after that should be students that are next in line on a waiting list also published. Or have an open and transparent lottery selection. It’s not that hard to be fair to all students. But La Serna has never wanted to be fair as to who gets in or out. They believe they are Whittier’s own Mar-A-Lago.
Not sure how you can make that claim without evidence. We have a pretty wide range of demographics that come to La Serna and we can’t fit 4k students at the school. Seems like you have a vendetta and would want to see the school fail instead of trying to actually do anything to fix the “problem” that you perceive to be happening at the school.
I think ? might be onto something here. La Serna is getting all the kids from the Whittier district and can be “selective” as to who they want. Pioneer and others don’t have that luxury. La Serna can let kids in if they want or they can pass on them.
Same thing happens in Glendora for kids who live in Azusa. It happens in Long Beach and several other districts throughout California.
Whether it’s fair or not is left to others to decide. As for me, I don’t think it’s just unfair, I think it flirts with being borderline racist. Let’s just see how many brown kids in the poorer neighborhoods we’ll let come to our school. They better be good athletes!!!
La Serna is a public school that operates like a private. It is not a first come first served for out of attendance zone students like it should be or even a lottery for the many many open spots but a “do we want you or not” process. “Shafted” is not the word but “discrimination” is. This is a story too long ignored with zero transparency from the school or district.
La Serna leads the district in academics – why fault people for wanting to go there? Mr. “?” must have been shafted.
“Transfers” is just semantics. Any kid out of the attendance zone has transfered. Without those transfers that are vetted carefully before approval La Serna would not exist. La Serna discriminates quietly and legally at as to WHO gets in and WHO doesn’t.
LS doesn’t have a lot of transfers but it does have a lot of out of attendance zone kids. Same could be said for a lot of schools. Become successful and people want to go there. Parents want to send their kids to successful programs, and it helps even more when that successful program is in an wealthy neighborhood, “safe,” neighborhood.
Lol, yes get rid of La Serna because it is entirely comprised of transfers… that wins the most ridiculous statement of the year for MidValleySports. Congrats!
@ Bottom Line: You might be correct in your comments about specific high schools, and I say that as someone who’s not familiar with the dynamics of the public high schools in Whittier and Pico Rivera.
However, I believe you’re exaggerating in your general statement about the failure of public schools to produce quality graduates. Public schools have been beset by serious challenges for decades, but many schools, if not all, have continued to provide valuable instruction and learning opportunities for students.
I’m in the midst of proctoring Advanced Placement exams in Calculus, Spanish, and Chinese at San Gabriel High School and Alhambra High. I can tell you from first-hand experience that teachers are working with students who are preparing themselves for careers in fields such as engineering, science, business, and public service.
It’s a disservice to basically say that our public high schools aren’t serving any of their students effectively. As I see it, the biggest need is for our schools to effectively serve a greater number of people.
I agree that many schools need to improve, but improvement will depend on a lot of factors, including adequate funding, teaching methodologies, discipline, and buy-in on the part of students and their parents.
The problems in public education aren’t simple, and neither are their solutions.
Get rid of La Serna. It has by far the lowest student count that live within their attendance boundary. It only exists because of transfers.
ER has capacity for 3500+ students and current enrollment is around 2300-2500, food for thought.
The biggest indictment of public high schools comes not from their athletic output, but the fact that none of them prepare our youth for more than minimum wage employment. That said, I fail to see the need for three of these institutions within a two-mile radius (ER, SF and Pioneer) at a time when the population is decreasing. The last two Pioneer coaches have been walk-ons, because the tiny enrollment there can’t support another teaching position. Sorry to ruffle feathers here, but if you think this place is still viable, you probably also think Blockbuster Video should be revived.
I am surprised there are not more football coaches walking away from the game. $2,500-$5,000 to take on the responsibility of coaching all year, not just fall. These football coaches are under paid. They are father figures, academic counselors, teachers of the game, and most kids take more from their football coach than most high school teachers. These coaches got to commended for getting, after taxes of $1,500-$3,500. These guys must love to give back to the community and to do it right it take many hours.
Are you suggesting that Pioneer should be shut down because its sports teams suck (because not many kids there want to play)? Does the school serve no other purpose than providing an outlet for teenage athletes? 1200 kids should go to school somewhere else in order to enable a tiny fraction of them to play on better teams and to prevent a larger (but still small) group from having to suffer the indignity of playing and losing, as opposed to sitting on the bench and winning or simply not joining a team?
There’s a lot of stupdity in the comments section on this site, but the idea that sports should be the most important part of high schools has got to be the most idiotic.
@ Bottom Line: According to information presented in today’s L.A. Times, Covid-19 hospitalizations across California have plummeted to a level not seen since March 2020, when the pandemic was just starting.
What’s truly remarkable is that we’ve made all this progress since January, when Covid-19 was at its peak in the United States. Our public health measures and the massive rollout of vaccines have turned the tide in our favor.
From my own perspective, I helped administer standardized tests at a high-school campus for two days this week. I worked with small groups of students; we were socially-distanced and everyone wore face masks. This was my first in-person substitute teaching job in almost 14 months.
Several masked students, possibly members of ASB or a service club, were inside a nearby building painting a mural on a row of lockers. That school site, and the entire Alhambra district, are preparing for a full reopening in August.
I’m guessing that we’ll have a complete high school football season in the late summer and fall—as long as the teams can begin summer practices in July. I believe it will happen, given our progress with the pandemic and the fact that we were able to pull off the abbreviated season this spring.
Mesa at San Marino is out too.
Can you remind us who the new HC’s are at local SGV schools?
Football was already on the ropes because many in our society view it as a savage activity, fraught with potential for life-altering injuries. Now, many coaches have reached the breaking point with the added restrictions of the Covid situation. Is it fair to judge a guy for how he has performed in this unreal spring season? Some will say the abbreviated campaign provided the ultimate test of a leader’s ability to attract and motivate players; others, like myself, view this slate of games as nothing more than a chance for seniors to say they played in their final year, along with a way to help Gavin Newsome change his negative image.
The Randall situation at Pioneer, if true, means that the level of participation is far worse than anything this man could have imagined. This is not the sixties, where that school could count on baby boomers pouring in from an overcrowded El Rancho or Santa Fe. The Whittier district, however, refuses to close this ‘stand alone’ high school, preferring to let the few kids who play sports there suffer losing seasons into perpetuity. Indeed, the district is currently constructing an expensive new aquatic center on this campus, in a desperate attempt to keep this place relevant past its expiration date.
The etiquette of this site doesn’t permit the honest statement that some coaches got fired, rather than “stepping down” on their own terms. The case of Pierson at Santa Fe comes to mind in this regard. The man was simply too much of a civil- servant type to succeed in a sport where a great deal of individualism is needed to acquire–and motivate—young men.
In the final analysis, it was good to finally see something that resembled high school football this spring, and we must sit and wait for our overseers, medical experts all, to tell us when it is safe to actually live our lives in a way that is remotely normal.
I’m hearing the Pioneer HS HC Steve Randall stepped down as well
Heard Pioneer is now open also