Work Promotion Ends Dream on the Field

For the last nine years, Police Lieutenant Cliff Trimble has coached the Troy High School girls’ soccer team, leading the Warriors to seven Freeway League titles. While law enforcement always has been a rewarding career for Trimble, 46, coaching has been his greater love.

And now, he will have to give it up.

Starting in June, Trimble, who has been serving the Brea Police Department for 22 years, will begin a three-year stint as administrative lieutenant, a position with far more time-consuming responsibilities than his present job of watch commander. Although he did not want to take the promotion--he has turned it down twice--Trimble, as the department’s most senior lieutenant, said he really did not have a choice.

This means Trimble, one of the county’s most successful and respected soccer coaches, will no longer have the time to coach.

“It’s a coveted position--one that’s good for the resume,” Trimble said. “It’s a wonderful position to go into . . . but I’m really going to miss the kids.

“As a law enforcement officer, we normally come in contact with, well, not the greatest people in the world. But these kids I’ve worked with, they’re the greatest. They, probably more than anyone else, have turned me into less of a cynic.”

Trimble started the girls’ soccer program at Troy with fellow officer Carl Hummitsch nine years ago, because their soccer-playing daughters were about to enter a high school without a program. The team raised all its funds. In fact, had the Troy booster club not extended its help, Trimble would not have been paid for the first year.

“It didn’t matter. I was going to do it for nothing anyway,” said Trimble, who often works graveyard shifts so he has afternoons off to coach the Warriors.

In Trimble’s first season, Troy qualified for the Southern Section playoffs, as it has in all of the years since. Although the Warriors have never made it past the quarterfinals, expectations are high this year.

Wednesday, Troy (14-3-3) will travel to Buena for a second-round match. Trimble said he’s trying not to let the emotion of his final season get to his team.

“I try to play that down,” said Trimble, known simply as “T” to his players. “I’m not the one out on the field. I tell them, ‘Don’t get emotional now. You’re out there for fun. Do your job, use your opportunities, but don’t forget to enjoy it too.”

It is that attitude that helped to win lifelong supporters for Trimble, who rarely raises his voice other than to yell the team’s motto, “Bloody Magic!” each time Troy scores.

John Turek, Troy’s football coach and assistant athletic director, has served as Trimble’s assistant for the last five years. He said Trimble has a tremendous appreciation for the role athletics can play in academics.

“He teaches real-life lessons to the girls,” Turek said. “You don’t normally associate (that) with those not formally trained in education.”

Indeed, Trimble, who says he doesn’t keep track of his career win-loss record but says it’s “probably around 90%,” is more interested in seeing his players off to college, whether they play soccer there or not.

“That, to me, is more important than any win-loss record,” said Trimble, who organizes group study sessions for any of his players having grade problems. “When the kids graduate from college, that, to me, is a winning season.”

Saturday night, a surprise party was thrown in honor of Trimble’s retirement from coaching. Although he came to the Valencia Community Center in Placentia prepared to address a church youth group on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, Trimble was welcomed instead by about 75 of his former players and their families.

There were banners--”We’re No. 1, And You Are Too!”--skits and songs commemorating Trimble’s nine years as chief Warrior. One of the songs ended:

Bloody Magic is our theme

Let’s let T. fulfill his dream.

In all the years she played, Julie Lacko, a four-year varsity member from 1983-87, said Trimble never lost his temper during a practice or game.

“The man never got angry,” said Lacko, one of three sisters who has played soccer at Troy. “Once, when I was a freshman, we had a game come down to sudden-death. I was the last to take the penalty shot and I missed. It was my fault that we lost.

“But the only thing he said to me was, ‘I put you there (in the final penalty-shot position) because I know you’re capable. I know you’ll make it next time.’ I’ve written like 50,000 papers on it. You know, when they ask you in English class to write about the one incident that changed your life? That was mine.”