Thompson Will Stay as Marina Coach : He Retracts His Resignation After Meetings With School Officials

Dave Thompson, who two weeks ago resigned as football coach at Marina High School, said Thursday that he has retracted his resignation and will return to coach the Vikings next fall.

After several days of meetings with school and district officials and his assistant coaches, Thompson left word of his decision with Marina Principal Ira Toibin shortly after arriving at school Thursday morning.

“Hopefully we’ve come to a better understanding of the situation here, and we’re on our way to solving some of the major problems,” Thompson said. “I’m back at it, and I’m happy to be back.”

Thompson had grown increasingly unhappy over what he saw as a lack of administrative support for the football program at Marina, and was particularly dissatisfied with the number of full-time teaching positions available to his assistants. Still, the resignation caught Toibin by surprise.

“Dave has been upset about the coaching situation for a few years,” Toibin said last week. “I knew this was a serious concern to him. I’m a little surprised that it had bothered him to the extent that he would resign.”

The teaching status of assistant coach Mark Rehling was one of the key issues in the effort to retain Thompson. Rehling has been an assistant to Thompson for eight years but had to accept a teaching position at Huntington Beach High School because declining enrollment forced the elimination of his position at Marina. After talking with personnel officials in the Huntington Beach Union High School District, Toibin informed Thompson that he will have an opening for an English teacher--Rehling’s specialty--next fall, and that Rehling can fill it should he choose to leave Huntington Beach.

Toibin said some of Thompson’s concerns were easier to deal with than others.

“We already had plans for implementing many of them anyway,” Toibin said. “Some of the things were impossible, and I think Dave understands that. He was willing to compromise, and that’s the nature of a lot of things in our system.

“If anybody had taken a hard line and said, ‘I’m unwilling to compromise,’ I think we would have been in the market for a new coach.”

Thompson spent several days wavering about whether to go through with his resignation but said a meeting with his assistant coaches Tuesday afternoon helped him reach his decision.

“That was a real influencing factor . . . the support and encouragement from the coaches,” he said.

Thompson has compiled a 58-32-4 record in eight seasons at Marina and has taken teams to the semifinals of the Southern Section Big Five Conference playoffs the last three years. Marina had only one winning season in its history before Thompson arrived in 1978 after coaching at Lynwood High School.

“We’ve said all along that we consider Dave to be one of the top football coaches in the business,” Toibin said. “If you have a very effective and talented person here, it doesn’t make much sense to go out and try to find another one.”