Carson High’s B Team Coach Goes Out a Winner : Preps: Finis Irvin compiled a remarkable record of 173-12-1 in 24 years of coaching lower-division football.

As a lower-division football coach at Carson High for 24 years, Finis Irvin did not have much time to work on his antique cars or take his wife, Marilee, out during the season. But now there will be time for both. He has decided to retire.

Irvin is going out on top. He guided this year’s B team to a 9-0 record. During his 10 years as head coach, Irvin compiled a record of 173-12-1 and the highest winning percentage (.848) of any football coach at Carson. His teams had six first-place and three second-place finishes in league play.

Originally Irvin planned to retire after the 1988 season. But he told varsity Coach Gene Vollnogle that he could help out if needed. As it turned out, he was. So, Irvin reluctantly agreed to take the job for one last season.

“I’ve enjoyed being a coach here, but it’s to the point where I’m enjoying my free time more than the coaching,” he said.

Irvin usually helped coach the varsity team during the playoffs but this year is different. Instead of coaching the expanded varsity roster, which includes the best B team players, he is making sure that the paper work is in order for his successor.

“Right now I’m sorting through the old equipment and deciding what can be kept and what I need to order for next year,” he said. “I mean for the new coach, next year.”

Working with his hands has always held a fascination for Irvin. In the last few years he has added a room to his house, built a larger garage and poured a cement driveway. Coaching had been getting in the way of those projects.

“The worst thing about coaching was all of the non-coaching duties that I had to oversee,” he said. “There was the physical fitness programs that we had to run to get the players in shape; checking records to make sure that the kids were eligible to play.

“From mid-August to the end of December, I work on these things. There just isn’t any time to relax.”

Not having enough time to work on his antique cars was the final straw for Irvin. With a 1934 Ford truck and a 1924 Chevy waiting for him at home, something had to give. Coaching was that something.

As a boy, he helped his father restore cars, starting a love affair that hasn’t stopped. His father would work on the engines and Irvin would work on the body. Sanding it down and banging out the dents to make it look like a new car were the favorite parts of his job.

“I had a ’32 Ford when I was a kid and that was a great truck,” he said. “I’m still kicking myself for giving that one up. It was just getting too hard to find parts for it.”

Irvin, 49, will continue to teach biology at Carson. Juggling his duties in the classroom and on the field proved too time-consuming.

For instance, he lined the field on game day, a chore that took three class periods to complete. Students in his biology classes were expected to study in the bleachers each Friday as Finis, dressed in Carson Colt sweat shirt and shorts, went about his work on the field.

“We’re really going to miss the dedication he put in with the students in the program,”Vollnogle said. “He really cared about the students on the team.”

In 1956, at the age of 14, Irvin first started playing football at Banning High. Vollnogle was the coach of the varsity squad there. Irvin said that it was one of the happiest times of his life.

“It was the first time that I’ve ever seen a coach treat his players like a human, and that really impressed me,” Irvin said.

That experience was the reason Irvin changed his major at Cal Poly Pomona from engineering to physical education, with a minor in biology. He iked what he saw in Vollnogle’s technique and decided to make coaching part of his career.

After three years of coaching at several private schools, Irvin got together with Vollnogle again at Carson High and has been there ever since.

The best part of coaching, Irvin said, was being at the game and controlling it. Every week was like a final exam for him and he wanted to do his best.

Teaching the players fundamentals is a large part of winning the game, and it’s what he stressed. Irvin liked to work with the younger kids and give them the footing they needed to play well.

“You have to give it everything if you want to play well,” he said. “Sometimes we would get out to the practice field at 3 p.m. and we would still be out there after dark running the same play.”

Money was not important to Irvin. He said he made about $1,000 for 10 weeks of work, which, he figured, came out to about 27 cents an hour for all the time the job required.

The winning tradition at Carson has helped attract a large and devoted coaching staff on all levels. Four of the coaches are teachers, but the seven others are walk-ons who used to play at Carson or want to be part of a winning program, Irvin said.

Vollnogle, varsity coach since the school opened in 1963, will retire after the 1990 season.

Irvin enjoys a style of coaching that allows him be the father figure. The assistant coaches discipline the players while he stays calm and collected. The B team runs the same basic plays as the varsity, so the transition is smoother when the players move up.

“The one thing that I’ve tried to teach the coaches is that once you’re done yelling at the player it’s over and you don’t hold a grudge,” he said.