THE PREPS : Sunset League Coaches Begin Their Job Hunt : Ramsey, Six Others Losing Positions

Seven Sunset League coaches said Thursday they will begin looking for new jobs after learning they will lose their current positions at the end of the 1988-89 school year.

Chris Ramsey said he is quitting as Marina High School football coach effective at the end of the school year, and he and the other six said they will begin job-hunting immediately.

Scott Glab, Marina wrestling coach; Randy Williams, Edison girls’ basketball coach; John Herman, Edison boys’ volleyball coach; Kari Quinlan, Huntington Beach field hockey coach; Les Wolfe, Fountain Valley assistant boys’ basketball coach; and Bob McAllister, Westminster boys’ and girls’ track and field coach also will lose their jobs at the end of the school year.

The seven are classified as temporary teachers by the Huntington Beach Union High School District and will not be back as a result of a plan in a new teachers’ contract ratified by the district’s Board of Trustees Tuesday night.

“Anybody who is a temporary teacher, who does not have a contract, will not be back in the fall and that’s not just coaches, it’s any teacher,” said Dr. Lawrence Kemper, district superintendent.

Another group of teachers also may be affected next fall. Those who have the least seniority in their departments could lose their full-time class schedules and be reassigned as substitutes at any of the district’s high schools. Most of those teachers, including Edison football Coach Dave White, are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

The plan is a cost-cutting measure that comes as a response to dwindling enrollment at the district’s six schools--Edison, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Marina, Ocean View and Westminster.

That’s of little help to the seven coaches, who voiced disillusionment and disappointment Thursday.

“Everybody is trying to be conservative in their statements,” Marina’s Ramsey said. “They don’t want to pop off, but I think everyone is bitter about this.”

Ramsey just completed his third season as Viking football coach, having moved to the Huntington Beach school from Atlanta, where he was an assistant football coach at Georgia Tech.

“I don’t know yet what I’m going to do,” Ramsey said. “I don’t know whether I’ll coach here or back East. In high school or college.”

Ramsey said the loss of the coaches will hurt the league’s competitive standing in Orange County.

“This has been the prime league for years and years,” Ramsey said. “It looks like it’s really going to go under.”

Glab is the resident substitute at Marina--which means he substitutes only at that school--and this is his first season as the wrestling coach. He moved to Orange County from the state of Washington and was hoping to eventually land a full-time position at Marina.

“I just found out this morning. Nobody came and explained it (the new contract) to me,” Glab said. “It’s disillusioned me. It’s set me back in my career. It’s a ‘What-am-I-going-to-do-now?’ kind of thing. I’m just kind of confused.

“I hate to leave this particular team because I know it’s going to be really successful.”

Williams, Edison girls’ basketball coach, has been an athletic trainer, an assistant coach and a teacher at the school for 14 years.

He said he was looking to move after this year anyway, but the new contract’s proposal reaffirmed his commitment to job hunting.

“I knew coming in this would probably be my last year (at Edison),” Williams said. “I know die,” said Quinlan, the resident substitute at Huntington Beach. “The odds were that I wasn’t going to be here next year. (Now) they couldn’t get anyone to coach anyway.

“I definitely still want to coach. This hasn’t made me not want to coach anymore.”

Wolfe said he is pursuing openings in Riverside County and in Northern California.

“I haven’t heard a lot of scuttlebutt from teachers, but there definitely teachers out there who are very bitter,” Wolfe said.

Wolfe is the resident substitute at Fountain Valley and began assisting the basketball team in 1981, when he was a student teacher at the school.

Wolfe also serves as the yearbook adviser at Fountain Valley. He said if not for his commitments to the basketball team and to the yearbook staff, he would likely leave in the middle of the school year if another job presented itself.

“I’m disappointed in the decision,” Wolfe said. “This (the Huntington Beach district) is an extremely attractive place to work.”

McAllister left a job as head football coach at Porterville (Calif.) High to come to Westminster 4 years ago.

“I’m very disappointed in what’s happened,” McAllister said. “I’m in the job market. Hopefully something positive will come out of it and I’ll end up with another coaching job at another school.

“I had a good opportunity to come down here and coach in one of the top leagues in Orange County and work in one of the top school districts and I jumped at the opportunity.

“I’m happy I made the decision. I’ve had a great 4 years.”