Former Cal Lutheran Assistant Uebelhardt Named to Royal Post

Gene Uebelhardt was selected Wednesday by interim Principal Marjorie Blackburn to replace Tom West as the Royal High football coach. Uebelhardt is a former college teammate and fellow teacher of West.

Uebelhardt, 35, played with West on Cal Lutheran College’s NAIA Division II national championship football team in 1971. Uebelhardt is a physical education teacher at Royal and was an assistant coach at the school from 1976 to ’77. He was an assistant at Cal Lutheran from 1978 until last season and did not coach this year.

After accepting the job, Uebelhardt stepped down as coach of the boys track and field team. He will remain with the program as an assistant.

Uebelhardt already has selected two assistants, both of whom teach at Royal and coached with him at Cal Lutheran. Jim Bauer, the defensive coordinator at Moorpark College this season, and Don Reyes, a defensive back coach at Cal Lutheran until this season, will join Uebelhardt.

Bauer and Reyes played with Uebelhardt at Cal Lutheran, and the three left the school within a week of each other in June after Reyes was not offered a contract to return as an assistant. Uebelhardt and Bauer resigned, in part to protest Reyes’ dismissal.

Uebelhardt said his priority is creating a 10-man staff comprising on-campus coaches. He said he would accept West in the program if he wanted to return.

“Tom West is a good football coach and he’s welcome to come back any time,” he said.

West said he wasn’t interested in being Uebelhardt’s assistant.

“I respect Gene Uebelhardt as a football coach, but I think a certain amount of respect has been lost because of the way this whole thing evolved,” West said. “I don’t think it was handled real positively by everybody involved.”

West was fired Monday, three days after Royal completed its season with a 24-14 loss to Camarillo. In West’s three years, Royal was 4-24-2, including a 1-7-2 record this season. The Highlanders were 1-16-1 in Marmonte League games, and the Simi Valley school has not played in the Southern Section Coastal Conference playoffs since 1983.

Uebelhardt is convinced Royal can compete in the Marmonte League and opposed a movement at the school last year to drop Royal to the Frontier League, which is composed of smaller schools.

“Our school is large enough for us to play and compete in the Marmonte League,” he said. “I’m not saying we’re always going to win but we definitely can compete.”

Staff writer Ralph Nichols contributed to this story.