Former Hart Coach Carson Takes Football Job in Spokane

Dave Carson, the former football coach at Burbank and Hart highs, will move to Spokane, Wash., at the end of the month to take a job as track coach and assistant football coach at Rogers High. Carson will teach physical education at Rogers, a three-year school with about 1,400 students.

The move comes nearly a year to the day after Carson was forced to resign as the Hart coach. Hart Principal Laurence Strauss asked for Carson’s resignation July 20 of last year, claiming Carson ran a “negative” program. In Carson’s only year at Hart, the Indians were 6-5. He was replaced last August by Mike Herrington, a Hart alumnus and a former assistant coach.

Carson, 42, compiled a 27-25 record in five years at Burbank. At Rogers, he will work for Coach Jeff Reyburn, Carson’s colleague on the Cal State Long Beach staff in 1977-78. Carson will coach the quarterbacks and linebackers.

Carson will resign his teaching position at Hart before the end of the month. Previously, he quit as an assistant coach at Muir in Pasadena. He had joined that staff at that school in May as defensive coordinator.

“I felt I had rejuvenated myself at Muir and now I’m real excited about coaching in Washington,” Carson said. “We went up there three weeks ago and fell in love with the place.”