Orange County Prep Review : Ocean View Expected to Select Coach This Week

The football coaching fraternity in the Sunset League could have a new look for the 1986 season with some changes likely to happen in the next three weeks.

Ocean View High School is concluding its search to find a replacement for former Coach Karl Gaytan, who resigned last month to enter private business in Fresno after two seasons.

The school received 31 applications and 10 finalists were interviewed. John Myers, Ocean View principal, is expected to announce Gaytan’s replacement at the end of the week.

Among the finalists are Don Markham, who coached Bishop Amat to the 1985 Angelus League title, former Green Bay Packer linebacker and Capistrano Valley assistant Eric Patton, Fountain Valley assistants George Berg and Guy Carrozo, Ocean View assistants Kurt Clemens and Howard Isom and Nogales assistant Lou Randall.

Markham is a highly qualified candidate with previous experience as an assistant at Pierce College and a long tenure as the head coach at Colton before arriving at Bishop Amat.

But insiders say he won’t get the job simply because he coaches the same type of ground-oriented football that Gaytan did. The Seahawks struggled to a 4-16 record over the past two years and won only two league games.

Carrozo and Berg, however, appear to be strong candidates. Berg was Fountain Valley’s linebacker coach and Carrozo served as the Barons’ defensive end and kicking coach. Both have 13 years of experience in the Huntington Beach Union High School District, and both are accepted among the coaching fraternity in the Sunset League.

On the surface, previous experience in the district and acceptance by the other coaches seems secondary to Markham’s credentials. But the district recently cut $1.4 million for its upcoming 1986-87 school budget. Also, Gaytan angered rival coaches when he announced he was going to “introduce physical football to the Sunset League” upon his arrival.

Insiders say that Myers is favoring Randall, who was a head coach at Chino and Garden Grove. Later, he accepted a job at a junior high near Waco, Tex. before returning to Orange County in 1984 as an assistant at Capistrano Valley. He coached and taught at Nogales in La Puente this season.

More changes?: Among the leading candidates to replace former Orange Coast College football Caoch Dick Tucker are three Sunset League head coaches: Bill Workman of Edison, Dave Thompson of Marina and Mike Milner of Fountain Valley.

Applications for the position closed last Wednesday and all three coaches are expected to receive an interview. The school had received only 14 applications on Tuesday, only 24 hours before the deadline. But Jim Carnett, OCC’s public information officer and a member of the screening committee, said he expected more to arrive from the district office.

The committee is expected to screen applications this week and then begin formal interviews on March 6. Carnett said 7 to 10 finalists will be interviewed.

Among the other notable coaches who have applied are former Servite coaches Ron Smeltzer and Ken Visser. Smeltzer is an assistant for the Canadian Football League’s British Columbia Lions, who won the Grey Cup in 1985. Visser is an assistant at Cal State Long Beach.

Allen arrives: It went virtually unnoticed, but highly touted Clifford Allen, a 6-foot 10-inch center from Carson, played his first varsity basketball game last week for El Paso de Robles, a correctional facility in Paso Robles.

Allen became the first basketball player in Southern Section history to sign a national letter of intent to play for an NCAA Division I college without the benefit of ever playing in a regular-season varsity game. Allen signed with Nevada Las Vegas last spring after an impressive summer.

Allen scored 32 points in a 72-69 loss to Santa Ynez in a 1-A division wild-card game. UNLV assistant Mark Warkentien told Chick Hearn and a Los Angeles television audience that Allen had the ability to take a college team to the Final Four.

Survey says: Basketball officials recently were polled by Dean Crowley of the CIF Southern Section office regarding their opinions of the controversial Rule 10-5 that restricts a coach to the bench during a game.

Crowley, who is also regarded as one of Southern California’s best basketball officials, is trying to determine the overall impact of the rule and allowing the officials the opportunity to have direct input to the National Federation Basketball Rules Committee.

“We’ve just started working on the results, but basically we’re finding that the officials say things are calmer this year with the new rule,” Crowley said. “At the same time, a lot of officials are saying the rule is an added burden.

“What bothers me the most is that some officials are enforcing the rule while others are ignoring it. There’s a lack of consistency.”

Prep Notes Registration for the American Roundball Corp.’s spring basketball league is scheduled for two sites in Orange County. The first registration is at 7 p.m. Monday, March 3, at Westminster High’s gymnasium. The second registration is at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, at Orange High’s gymnasium. The league is open to boys from the eighth to 12th grades. The registration fee of $50 includes a T-shirt and jersey. League games will be played at Westminster and Orange under coaches Dick Katz and Ed Graham. For more information, call Rich Goldberg at (818) 893-1445. . . . For the record: In Saturday night’s CIF Southern Section 3-A playoff game, Los Alamitos’ Jeanette Dorsey scored 20 points and Kelli Moore had 14 instead of the other way around as reported. . . . Former Capistrano Valley star Dan Dargan is the co-captain of Pomona-Pitzer’s basketball team that won its first Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title outright since the conference was formed in 1918. Dargan is a senior forward majoring in history with a 3.5 grade-point average. . . . The Empire League was the only county league to go unbeaten in the first round of the basketball playoffs as Katella, El Dorado and Los Alamitos all won Friday night in the 3-A division.