Coaches Gain Experience in Garden Grove League, Then Look Elsewhere

Tim O’Brien, Estancia High School’s basketball coach, came to Southern California from Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1984, looking for a coaching and full-time teaching position at an Orange County high school.

Within a month, O’Brien was hired by the Garden Grove Unified School District to coach boys’ basketball and teach physical education at Santiago, a Garden Grove League school.

O’Brien took the job, but after one season, he left for another.

“I used the (Santiago) job as a springboard, really,” O’Brien said. “My aim was to get a job in the county. . . . I thought I could do some things at Santiago, but it just was not what you’d call a basketball atmosphere. So I started looking around.”

Vern Nelson, Bolsa Grande’s baseball coach since 1976, said he has thought of leaving the school several times in the past years.

Why?

“You don’t have to have an IQ larger than your waist to figure out this is not , by any means, the ideal place to coach,” Nelson, 57, said.

Like many of the league’s coaches--past as well as present--Nelson says the Garden Grove League athletic programs are continually hampered by the restrictions placed on them by the Garden Grove Unified School District and by the drawbacks of coaching in the Garden Grove area.

The most significant limitation of the district, coaches say, is the absence of the afternoon athletic period, an informal period at the end of the school day during which coaches can work with their players outside the season of sport. All other county leagues have a sixth-period athletic class.

“If you’re a young coach who comes in and sees this, how long are you going to stay? You see a district that, believe me, is anti-jock,” Nelson said. “You’re not going to come here. Why should you when there’s so much else to be had somewhere else?”

Coaches are hoping that the district will institute an athletic period next school year so that league schools may no longer be at a disadvantage when competing against teams from other leagues.

Since 1980, there have been 37 head coaching changes in the Garden Grove League’s baseball, football and boys’ basketball programs.

In the same time, the Sunset League has had 15 head coaching changes in those three sports.

In the last five years, Santiago has had five boys’ basketball coaches. Los Amigos has had five baseball coaches in eight years.

Why have so many left the Garden Grove League?

League coaches point to several factors: declining enrollment throughout league schools, a diminishing number of positions for on-campus assistants and a general lack of support from the surrounding community.

But the lack of an athletic period seems to be the greatest issue.

“I think the sixth-period PE has always been a thorn in a lot of coaches’ sides,” said Bill Reynolds, who coached basketball in the Garden Grove League for 15 years before he moved to Southern California College in 1981.

“It brought about some frustration with the coaches--justifiably, I think.”

O’Brien, who left Santiago for a two-year stint at Tustin before he moved to Estancia, said: “When people first told me about the (Santiago) job, they told me it wasn’t a bed of roses by any stretch. But my first priority was to get a job in Southern California, so I took it.

“But I’ll tell you, that was one long year.”

O’Brien said that for him, the major drawback at Santiago was not having a sixth-period PE.

“It’s a tremendous advantage,” he said. “It means that during the off-season I can work with my kids and it’s legal.”

Ed Coyle, who coached basketball at Santiago from 1985-86 until he left for a head coaching position at West Covina’s Edgewood High, said: “I went in to Santiago with hopes that we could build a program.

“There were some really supportive people there, the faculty and administration, but I had to teach five science classes, and with no sixth-period PE, I just didn’t feel basketball was (seen as) real important there at the time.

“Maybe it’s a good job for someone starting out and needing to pay their dues, but . . .”

Mike Baron, who coached football at Rancho Alamitos from 1979-83 and at West Hills Community College from 1984-86, was hired at Santiago last year. Baron has a more optimistic outlook for the Garden Grove League’s future.

“I came back for the district,” Baron said. “I think it’s on the upswing. When I came in, the principal and the vice principal said we are hiring you to get that program back in shape because we’re going to be getting stronger in the next few years.

“I believe that. I think everything’s balancing itself out. It’s going to be a workable situation. It might not happen drastically, but it’ll work out eventually.”

Those who have stayed for periods longer than five years say they remain for several reasons.

Most have close ties to the school, its student body and faculty. Some say a move to another district school probably would mean taking a substantial cut in pay.

Others say that although they don’t like the limits imposed on them by the Garden Grove League, the satisfaction of coaching is satisfaction enough.

“I stay at Garden Grove because I like the kids I work with and I like the school,” said Gene Campbell, who has coached basketball at Garden Grove since 1978.

“I realize there might be better opportunities elsewhere. There are other leagues that are more (conducive) to winning programs. But that’s not my sole objective.

“ If my sole interest was to be a college level or pro coach, then, yes, I could see wanting to leave. But those aren’t my priorities.

“What I want is to be is a very good high school basketball coach. To me, coaching is coaching. And I like what I’m doing and where I’m doing it at.”