Summer Vacation Isn’t Always Time Out for Coaches : When Some High School Teachers Put Down That Whistle, They Pick Up a Broom or Brush

At the end of the school year, high school athletic coaches can count on a three-month vacation break from their daily routine.

But for many the break is far from a vacation.

They are busy working summer jobs.

Some land work as summer school teachers, but others are forced to search outside of the schools for employment.

“Normally we spend the other nine months of the year looking for summer employment so we can help make ends meet,” said Gary Shair, who coaches boys basketball and girls softball at Chatsworth High.

While many of the activities of the coaches might fall in the mundane category, there are exceptions.

Carson assistant football coach Saul Pacheco, for instance, spends his summers as a U.S. Customs officer at Los Angeles International Airport; and Jerry Marvin, Palisades boys basketball coach, passes up work. He is generally abroad, this year in Paris, thanks to a house swapping arrangement.

Then there is Shair, who is a pool manager at a park in North Hollywood; Tom Carroll, athletic director and baseball coach at Damien in La Verne, who is summer janitor at the school, and George Rosales, assistant football coach at St. Francis in La Canada, a summertime house painter.

Exciting or not, you won’t hear many complaints from coaches. Most are just happy to have a job that will help pay their bills until the new school year starts.

Carroll is the first to admit that his summer job doesn’t sound too appealing.

“I’m a janitor--landscape engineer if you want to make it sound better,” he joked.

No, mowing lawns, sweeping up trash, pulling out weeds and painting buildings is not for everyone.

But the 55-year-old Carroll, who has been a janitor at the school for 14 years, doesn’t seem to mind.

“I still enjoy it,” he said. “Some days it gets so hot that it becomes a difficult chore. But I really enjoy the physical stuff. There are days when I ask myself, ‘What the hell am I doing this for?’ But it pays the bills and that’s what it’s all about.

It’s Survival

“This is survival for me. You have to make house payments and feed your family and this is the best way for me to do it. There’s not a lot of money in this but as long as nobody (in the family) gets sick . . . it’s OK.”

Carroll, who has been the school’s athletic director for 13 years and a coach for 31 years, is used to working hard over the summer. One of his first summer jobs was as a construction worker. He also spent two summers working as an asphalt layer. “That was tough work but the money was good,” he recalled.

If anything, Carroll says that doing maintenance work is a nice change from the pressures of his work during the school year.

“It gets me away from the necessities of planning for every day during the school year,” he said. “I don’t have to ask myself, ‘Did I order enough tape? Do we have enough equipment?’ It’s hard work but there isn’t as much pressure as there is during the school year. I can do things at my own pace.”

Pride in His Work

It may not be as taxing as being an athletic director or coaching, but Carroll maintains a lot of pride in his work.

“It’s nice for the kids (at Damien) to come back in September and see their school looking good,” he said.

Two of his major tasks this summer have been planting grass on a new athletic field and helping to repair part of the school’s football stands.

Carroll usually takes two or three weeks off before the school year starts, but he does so with hesitation. “My biggest worry is that when I leave, nobody will cut the grass. That means more work for me and my crew (of one other janitor and several student workers) when I come back in the fall.”

Compared to his work as a coach and teacher during the school year, Shair’s summer job is like a refreshing dip in a pool.

The 50-year-old Shair acknowledges that his job as a pool manager is not the most demanding in the world--and that’s just the way he likes it.

“It’s a great break from coaching and teaching,” Shair said. “I don’t know how some people can work at the same thing all year. It’s a refreshing change and the hours are very flexible. This summer is even better because I’m only working nights.”

Shair has been working around swimming pools for as long as he can remember. His first job was as a pool locker attendant at age 15. He has also been a lifeguard at pools and beaches.

For most of the last 20 summers, however, he has been a pool manager.

Shair said his job was a little more difficult the previous five years, when he had to deal with youth gangs while managing the pool in Paxton Park in San Fernando.

No Serious Problems

“We never had any serious problems,” he said. “Occasionally there would be graffiti sprayed on the walls but that was about it. I didn’t have many problems but I’m 6-5 and over 200 pounds and that made a lot of difference compared to the last manager. He had some problems but he was only 5-8.”

Shair said one of the worst problems occurred the night before his first day on the job.

“This guy who had apparently been drinking jumped over the fence, started swimming in the pool and drowned,” he recalled.

Since moving to the Valley Plaza Pool in North Hollywood and working nights this summer, Shair says his job has gotten even easier.

“It’s basically the same as the last one except this pool has a lot more (recreational) programs,” Shair said. “I strictly supervise the recreational aspect of the pool and close it up in the evenings.”

Light Workload

Considering that the day manager sets up most of the day’s programs and does most of the paper work before Shair arrives, he said his workload has decreased significantly.

Shair said he does not make a lot of money as a pool manager, but enough to supplement his school salary.

“It puts groceries on the table,” he said. “It’s about a third of what my teaching salary is but that’s about all I need to survive over the summer.”

All things considered, Shair said he wouldn’t trade his job for anything else.

“How many people can get paid to sit and watch a pool?” he asked.

On a typical day as a U.S. Customs officer at the Tom Bradley Terminal in Los Angeles International Airport, Saul Pacheco says his job is rather mundane.

It’s the atypical days that make it exciting.

The 46-year-old Pacheco, who has been an assistant football coach and teacher at Carson for 21 years, had one of those days about eight years ago when he was checking the baggage of incoming passengers from Mexico.

“One passenger was coming off the plane and we found 10 1/2 pounds of cocaine in his baggage,” said Pacheco, who said the cocaine had a street value of about $4 million.

Pacheco was duly recognized for his discovery, receiving the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Award for service above the call of duty.

Found Other Contraband

He has found his share of drugs and other contraband since then, although none of his hauls has matched the cocaine find.

Pacheco, who also coaches track at L.A. Harbor College in Wilmington, has been working as a Customs officer for nearly 19 years. He was told about the job opening by another teacher who had worked for Customs.

“When I applied it just so happened that the customs bureau was looking for help during their peak time, which is in the summer, and I was hired,” said Pacheco, who works with the bureau’s import and immigration divisions and baggage checking.

‘Helps to Be Flexible’

One of the few drawbacks of the job is the hours. Pacheco, who works full time from June through August and part time through September, said he has worked as many as 11 days in a row and has irregular shifts, “so it sure helps to be flexible.”

For the most part he said he enjoys his work and the pay is good. So why doesn’t he make it a full-time job?

“We’ve had several people work there over the summer who are now in the higher echelon (of the bureau). It’s a nice job and I could do it full time,” he said, “but I guess I like coaching a little more.”

As a house painter, George Rosales realizes he has a summer job that few others want.

“Who would want to paint houses, especially in the summertime?” asked Rosales, who is an assistant football coach at St. Francis in La Canada.

Well, the 43-year-old Rosales is one person who doesn’t mind. In fact, he said it is rather enjoyable.

“It’s something that a lot of people don’t want to do,” he said. “But it’s not as bad as it sounds. Mentally it’s very relaxing and physically you can work as hard as you want to.

“It certainly helps keep your mind off of football and everything else. There’s no pressure to speak of and nobody asks you questions. You just paint and that’s it.”

Works With Another Teacher

Rosales, who was football coach at Burroughs the last six years and still teaches U.S. history and government at the school, paints houses, apartments and condominiums for about eight hours a day with another teacher from Burroughs.

Rosales, who is a Glendale resident, said he tried teaching driver training and other subjects for a few summers but decided that was not for him.

But with a wife and four children, Rosales needed to do something for extra income during the summer and he said becoming a painter was a good solution.

“It sounds like a menial job but it is something that supplements your income over the summer,” Rosales said.

In an average summer, Rosales estimates that he takes home about $3,000.

“It’s not nearly as much as you make teaching but you don’t really do it expecting to get rich,” he said. “It’s more of a supplementary thing.”

Work?

During the summer?

Jerry Marvin, Palisades boys basketball coach for 26 years, doesn’t believe the two go hand in hand.

Instead, the 56-year-old Marvin spends most of his summers on vacation with his wife. This summer he is spending 10 weeks in France. In previous years there were extended trips to Italy, England and Hawaii.

“He’s one of the few teachers I know who can do exactly what he wants to do during the summer,” said Tom Chatham, a career adviser at Palisades who was the school’s athletic director for 12 years. “Most of us have to work over the summer. I know I do.”

How does Marvin manage to spend his summers in a manner that most coaches could scarcely envision?

Trades Houses

In a phone interview from Paris, Marvin said he does it by trading houses with other families who live where he wants to travel.

“My wife got the idea a long time ago from answering an advertisement in the L.A. Times,” he said. “Somebody wanted to trade their house so they could vacation in L.A. It sounded like a great idea, so we did it.”

For their trip to France, Marvin and his wife exchanged their home in Pacific Palisades for a three-bedroom apartment and a car in Paris.

“You can trade just about everything,” he said. “Sometimes we even trade the cats and dogs.”

Marvin said that is the only way he and his wife can afford to travel abroad every summer.

‘Ideal Way to Travel’

“For me, it’s the only way to go,” he said. “It’s an ideal way to travel. Otherwise it’s just too expensive. This way we’re saving on renting a hotel and a car--two major expenses.”

Marvin, who taught driver training and was an instructor at the John Wooden Basketball Camp for 13 years, said he decided a long time ago that he didn’t want to work during his summer break.

“I’ve always had a tough summer,” Marvin joked. “I used to have a cabin up in Lake Arrowhead that I went to every summer. Then we started trading houses.”

He has been to Hawaii eight times, England three times and Italy and France twice each. Marvin also took a side trip to Spain and Portugal for three weeks in July.

As for the Palisades basketball team, which plays a full schedule of games during the summer, Marvin leaves it in the hands of his assistant coaches. Dick Bassler and Jim Paleno have led the team to a 26-8 record this summer.

‘In Good Hands’

“My players are probably happier because I’m not there,” Marvin said. “It used to be we didn’t play much at all during the summer. But now you have to just to keep up. If I couldn’t leave the players in good hands I wouldn’t be able to do this. But they’re definitely in good hands.”

So Marvin is free to spend a leisurely vacation in France, although he has had a few language barriers to hurdle.

“I got a flat tire the other day on the way to the golf course,” he said. “I finally got it fixed but it was difficult getting people to understand me.”

That’s why he says his wife does most of the talking. “She speaks a little French. She does most of the talking when we’re in France, Italy or Spain. I help out when we’re in England.”

But most coaches would probably trade those kind of problems with Marvin.

For most coaches, summer is simply a matter of survival.