Costa Mesa Football Coach Baldwin Fired

Tom Baldwin, Costa Mesa High’s football coach the past eight seasons, has been fired, Athletic Director Dean Cooper said Saturday.

“This was not an easy or fun decision,” Cooper said. “Tom’s a good man. (But) we just didn’t feel the football program was going in the direction we’d like to see it go.”

Cooper said there were other reasons for Baldwin’s dismissal but said, “I’d just rather not get into them in public.”

The Mustangs were 3-7 this season, losing four games by a total of 14 points. In Pacific Coast League they were 1-4.

“(Costa Mesa) is not the easiest place in the world to coach,” said Baldwin, citing the school’s small size and high immigrant population, which isn’t familiar with football.

Baldwin, 60, was 26-54-1 at Costa Mesa, including winless seasons in 1984 (0-9-1) and 1989 (0-10). In 1990, the Mustangs improved to 6-5, 3-2 in the league.

“I know I did a very good job,” Baldwin said. “I have no regrets about anything. I feel they made a mistake in firing me.”

Baldwin, a history and economics teacher at Costa Mesa, plans on staying at the school for now, but said he will seek another football coaching position.

Cooper said a fight Nov. 1 during a 38-0 victory over Laguna Beach, which resulted in the one-game suspension of a Costa Mesa player, did not figure into his decision.

Baldwin began his head coaching career in 1965 at Santa Ana High. He was fired at Santa Ana after the 1973 season, then was hired as an assistant coach with the Southern California Sun of the now-defunct World Football League.