Culver City Assistant to Replace McCurdy as Royal Baseball Coach

Daniel May, a varsity assistant at Culver City High for the past three years, has been selected to guide the Royal baseball program, Principal Dave Jackson said Wednesday.

May, 26, replaces Mike McCurdy, who resigned last month with a four-year record of 44-56. The Highlanders were 12-17 and finished sixth in the Marmonte League with a 4-8 mark in 1989. Royal never reached the playoffs under McCurdy.

Jackson picked May over Al Tarazon, the other finalist for the job and the junior varsity coach at Channel Islands High.

“It was a tough decision because both are fine young men,” Jackson said. “I sat down and took a big yellow paper and listed the pros and cons of each. The easy part is when you have one guy who’s a 10 and everyone else is a 4. Both these guys were 9-plus.

“The part that swayed me was that Dan May had three years of varsity experience as an assistant. But I’ll tell you what, Al Tarazon will be a head coach somewhere soon.”

May will join Royal in the fall as a student teacher in the art and photography departments. He also will assist in the football program.

“That did not come into my final decision. I was trying to find a very, very good baseball coach,” Jackson said.

May has coached the Culver City defensive line for the past two seasons. He coached the freshman baseball team before serving as varsity assistant the past three seasons.

May said that he met Royal Athletic Director Terry Dobbins three years ago at a Culver City-Simi Valley baseball playoff game and has kept in touch ever since. Dobbins, then at Simi Valley, later moved to Royal. May’s parents also live in Simi Valley.

“Between keeping in touch with Dobbins and my parents, I stayed on top of what was going on with job openings out there,” said May, a 1981 Culver City graduate who played baseball at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

May said that he is exploring the possibility of entering Royal in an area summer league.

“We’re off to a late start,” May said. “But I’m hoping that with the contacts I have down here that we can work something out.

“Even if it’s real informal, I’d like to see what we’re going to have out there.”

Culver City won the Ocean League title last season and finished 21-7. The Centaurs were defeated by Long Beach Millikan in the second round of the Southern Section 5-A Division playoffs.