Bucking a Trend, Valley Names Baseball Coaches

For most of the year, athletic programs at Los Angeles Community College District schools have been on the endangered list.

Teachers have been laid off, coaches fired and programs eliminated as part of district-wide cutbacks in faculty and staff.

As such, the news out of Valley College on Thursday was a bit surprising. The Van Nuys school announced it was hiring new coaches.

Kevin Murphy and Len Ciufo will be co-coaches of the baseball program in 1987, Valley Athletic Director George Goff announced. They will replace Scott Muckey, one of 23 part-time coaches fired by the district on June 30.

Muckey will be an assistant next season at College of the Canyons under new Coach Len Mohney.

“I’m sorry to see Scott go to Canyons,” Goff said. “But our district wasn’t too good to him, and it was a chance for him to get a teaching job he was well-qualified for, and a coaching job, too.”

As a part-time coach, Muckey was not a classroom instructor at Valley.

The process by which Goff was able to add coaches after others had been fired is complicated.

Murphy, who played for Dave Snow on Valley’s state championship team in 1981, got the job for two reasons. The most obvious one is that Goff wants him to coach the team.

The other is Len Ciufo.

After the district layoffs, Goff said, the only coaches who can be hired at this point are those that are full-time physical education teachers. Ciufo meets the requirement.

Technically, Ciufo is the coach and Murphy is his assistant. In reality, the responsibilities will be virtually equal.

Ciufo will work with the team on the field, but mostly will be in charge of administrative duties. Murphy will concentrate strictly on coaching the team.

“Anybody can be hired as an assistant coach, and assistant coaches can become co-coaches,” is how Goff put it.

The move to add Murphy and Ciufo as baseball coaches completes the Monarch athletic staff for the 1986-87 school year. Valley will offer seven men’s sports, the same as last year.

“With all the uncertainty this year, there have been a lot of rumors,” Goff said. “But everything is a go for us next year.”