By Tim Peterson
(Santa Fe Springs) – Mike Moschetti has stepped down as the head football coach at St. Paul after three seasons he confirmed Friday.
St. Paul went 15-19 overall during Moschetti’s three-year tenure including 1-3 in the playoffs. The Swordsmen started last season 0-7 but won their last three games to make the playoffs. They lost to Redondo Union 14-13 in the second round of the CIF Division 5 playoffs and finished with an overall record of 4-8.
St. Paul qualified for the playoffs in all three years under Moschetti.
“I just struggled to get the players to play big time football. It’s all on me. 4-8 (record) is something I have to live with. I got to win games and I didn’t get it done,” Moschetti said.
St. Paul will begin the search for a new head coach effective immediately.
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I’ll do it if St. Paul is paying as much as St. Francis.
I saw a list posted of guys that St. Paul should target. I’m gonna take a shot at it too.
Adrian Medrano- El Rancho
Jeff Magdaleno- St. Anthony
Daniel Hernandez- Ocean View
Visko Ancich- formerly Whittier
Rand Holdren- Maranatha
All of these guys would not just be good coaches, but the right fit at St. Paul. All would have alum backing and neither would try and go out and get kids that don’t fit the St. Paul traditions.
@Sports Man Anon here. Not sure who you were referring to. I wasn’t stating Moschetti was horrible. He indeed is respectable and his efforts are and should be appreciated-even if it did not give St. Paul what they need. I also share my well-wishes to him. If he maybe wants to be an assistant coach elsewhere such as Damien, San Dimas, Covina, Diamond Bar, San Gabriel, wherever, I think he should go for it-even at La Cañada, Pasadena Marshall, Azusa, Glendora, he’d be great
Obviously, St Paul would do best if they could plug Zepeda back into the coaching slot and pick up where they left off. That probably won’t happen because the guys who fired him don’t want to admit they were wrong, and Rick may have found something better to do with his time than work for people who make him feel inadequate.
??? Read better and with more interpretation so you dont lose credibility! He made it very, very clear by stating “I struggled to get players to play big time football!’ “its all on me and i will have to live with it!” you criticize him because you did not read it well? (I am not saying you are not a good reader) Criticizing a very good coach ‘(in my opinion).
Hopefully Zepeda better make it back to head coach. If he was allowed to reapply and be rehired, would sound great! (I know probably easier said than done)
If you do a cursory check say of Rio Hondo Prep all you get are pictures of student athletes. You get very few pictures of the campus of any Catholic School. One could easily get the opinion that these schools are football factories fully exploiting boys and girls to try to get them athletic scholarships. Maybe that’s a good idea but it seems like exploitation to me.
The issue was St. Paul has maybe borderline D5-D6 level talent and scheduling like a D2-D1 team, those players cannot handle that type of schedule hence why they cannot win. Rick Zepeda knew St. Paul was not going to be a D1-D2 team so he schedule’d accordingly and almost won a D5 title but ran into the Aquinas buzz saw.
We can argue until we turn blue, but the elephant in the room is that St Paul’s campus looks like an elementary school from the sixties. What blue-chip players are going to be impressed by that? When you add in the fact that St Paul is demanding that you PAY to go there, and that many of the teachers aren’t even credentialed, well, that’s a zero-sum game if ever I saw one.
Do you think we will hear Pete Carroll say “I just struggled to get the players to play big time football” when he departs from the Raiders? While Moschetti is quoted saying, “it’s all on me”, is he really feeling that way? Because it appears he deflected some of that when he says he couldn’t get the “players to play big time football”.
My grandson mentioned that some of his former 7-on-7 buddies played with guys from St Paul. Many of them and their parents were concerned with the many players from outside the area who were being recruited by the current Swordsmen staff. There was chatter about the lack of continuity between the local players and the recruited players. Could this have ultimately been the core reason for the lack of success that Moschetti is referring to?
I was also told the enrollment is still very low at St Paul. How much impact will this have if these recruited athletes leave with Moschetti’s resignation?
@bottom line what are you talking about? Zepeda took SP to the playoffs multiple times, WON multiple playoff games, and made it to the FINALS. He didn’t accept anything except getting his players to play to their best ability. All this LM guy did was schedule tough teams to LOSE. Congrats to him for putting pressure on his teams when he never needed too. All I see is a big FAILED experiment.
I don’t blame Moschetti at all in this situation. St. Paul’s hire of the former La Mirada guy was misguided in the same way as the Raiders’ hire of Pete Carroll. Neither organization provided the support needed to make a move upward. Mike attempted to make local players perform far beyond their abilities, whereas Zepeda understood and accepted the limits of the area kids’ output. Until or unless St Paul is infused with a huge monetary endowment and a vastly upgraded campus, a lukewarm level of football is the only realistic expectation.
Could not get St> Paul football players to play “big time football”. So it’s not his fault it’s the players fault. He will show up somewhere and fail to get his players to play big boy football.
scheduling those monster matchups did them no favors, kids want to win. 1st rd playoff exits and 3-5 win seasons are not going to attract anyone. Rick Z had things well established.