The Preps / Scott Howard-Cooper : When St. Paul Needed a Coach, He Was Ready

It was typical January weather in the Midwest the day Rick Ready planned to leave Los Angeles to return home to Ohio, and that’s all it took to start a chain of events that has changed his life drastically.

The way it was supposed to happen, Ready would spend some time in Southern California with his wife, Heather, a marketing director for a medical supplies firm who had just been transferred here, and then go back to work as offensive line coach at the University of Miami (Ohio).

They had been married only a month at the time so it was hardly that they wanted to be 2,300 miles apart, but Ready figured he would spend one more season at the 14,700-student college north of Cincinnati and then be able to take the time to find a job in Southern California. With recruiting in full swing and potential freshmen coming to visit the campus, it just wasn’t the right time.

But the bad weather that closed many of the airports in the Midwest and made it impossible for him to get back for another three days made it the right time.

He checked with the people at USC. He checked with UCLA. He checked with Coach Bill Redell at Encino’s Crespi High. But nothing turned up.

Then he got in touch with St. Paul of Santa Fe Springs. A short while later, after the normal application and interview process, the job was his.

And suddenly, he was home.

Ready, who was 21 when he was named head coach at his alma mater, Cincinnati’s Roger Bacon High School, is 28 now, which isn’t so young to be coaching when it’s remembered that Jim Walker, previous St. Paul coach, was 25 when he took over in 1982 after Marijon Ancich had led the Swordsmen to the Big Five Conference title the previous year.

Ready has already coached four years in the high school ranks and the year and a half in college, not counting the three or four days he spent as an assistant at Indiana University.

Then, he planned to be on Sam Wyche’s staff, but Wyche moved on to the Cincinnati Bengals just days after Ready arrived in Bloomington. Ready went to Miami a few days later.

If tradition is important, St. Paul couldn’t have found a coach from a better place. Miami of Ohio is known as the cradle of coaches. The list of coaches who have graduated from Miami is indeed impressive. Bo Schembechler, Ara Parseghian, Paul Brown and Weeb Ewbank are a few of them. Woody Hayes and Sid Gillman coached there.

And how did a job opportunity arise for Ready at St. Paul? It all goes back to Howard Schnellenberger’s taking the job at the University of Louisville: Jim Caldwell left the University of Colorado to join Schnellenberger at Louisville; Oliver Lucas left Pomona High to replace Caldwell as wide receiver coach at Colorado, and Walker moved from St. Paul to replace Lucas at Pomona.

Lucas’ departure ends one of the unique--but positive--coaching stints in Southern California in that he put the future success of his players ahead of the current success of the team.

“We’re not hypocrites,” he said. “We don’t stress education just so we can keep the kids eligible.” Then he went out and proved it by taking the Red Devils to seasons of 2-8 in 1983 and 6-5 in ’84.

In those two seasons, though, six players landed scholarships to Pacific 10 Conference schools and five others went to Division I schools.

Jim Barnett, who left what figures to be one of California’s top football teams at Long Beach Poly to become coach at Trabuco Hills of Mission Viejo, was asked a couple weeks ago how things looked as the school’s first season approached.

“Believe me, there are a lot of days I wish I was back at Poly,” he said. “The athletes, of course, are better (at Poly). But I thought that the facilities would be a little better down here. I’m a little surprised. They’ve got us practicing right now at an elementary school.”

Some real teamwork, according to the Chicago Tribune: “A lot of colleges don’t know it yet, but they’re out of the running for the services of highly coveted St. Rita all-state linebacker John Foley. Foley, who has a desk drawer stuffed with applications from colleges and universities from coast to coast, gives them away to classmates who express interest at enrolling in a particular school.”

The 6-3, 240-pound Foley, considered one of the country’s top prep linebackers, will reportedly wait until at least November to seriously consider his college choices. There are some, however, who are already saying that it would be a surprise if he went anywhere other than Notre Dame.

The Southern Section’s executive committee announced Aug. 29 that the Huntington Beach Ocean View boys’ basketball team cannot participate in the 5-A basketball playoffs in the 1985-86 season and that the Seahawks were put on probation for two years and will have to return their runner-up trophy from last season.

The decision was based on evidence submitted by Ocean View and the Huntington Beach Union High School District that showed Coach Jim Harris had used “undue influence” to keep Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely, transfers from Lynwood High, at the school. Both players left their parents’ homes in Lynwood under the care of guardian Laurant Brown, but later moved in with Harris and his family in El Toro after Brown left Orange County.

With starters Butler, Blaine DeBrouwer and Tony Panzica and sixth-man Hazely returning from a team that finished 24-4, the Seahawks would have been considered one of the favorites to win the 5-A title in 1986.

Prep Notes The 67-page Southern Section football schedule for the 349 member schools, including a list of previous champions and all results from the 1984 playoffs, is available at the Southern Section office for $4, or through the mail for $5. The office, at 11011 Artesia Blvd. in Cerritos, also sells maps showing the location of schools in the greater Los Angeles area for $2. For more information call (213) 860-2414. . . . Burbank, which last year saw two of California’s best players, Aaron Emanuel of Quartz Hill and Michael Johnson of Baldwin Park, in its first two games, will open this season against Claremont and Dan McGwire, one of the top quarterbacks in the nation, Thursday night at Citrus College. . . . KDOC-TV (Channel 56) will have its high school football game of the week again this season. A game between Westminster La Quinta and Placentia El Dorado Friday night is first up. It will be shown on taped-delay Friday night at 10, then shown again Saturday morning at 8. . . . Reggie Taylor, formerly of Compton High, had 138 yards rushing Saturday, the second time this season he has gone over 100, as the University of Cincinnati beat Austin Peay, 31-9.