Leaving Behind O.C.’s Lifestyle : A Number of Prep Coaches Are Finding Reasons to Vacate Profession, Area

Orange County should be a mecca for high school coaches.

The weather allows for year-round play in which athletes can perfect their skills in club or high school programs. Recreational youth leagues in many cities offer great feeder programs for most high schools.

Parental support has helped create strong and prosperous booster clubs, and an affluent area means athletes can attend the best collegiate and private camps in the country.

But somehow, the better mouse trap that, for the past 20 years, has been refined into a highly successful sports machine encompassing the area’s 75 high schools, has had an alarming number of coaches quit in the past two years.

Some of the county’s most successful football, basketball and baseball coaches have deserted the ranks for various reasons.

Budget cuts, fund-raising woes, dealing with athletes’ off-the-field problems, a simple change in lifestyle or even the opportunity to enjoy a better life in another state have prompted quality coaches to resign.

Others have become victims of their own programs that dictate year-round training and a full schedule of summer league games in order to remain successful in the competitive prep world.

Still other coaches share a common denominator among their reasons for leaving: parental pressure. They cite parents’ expectations of maintaining a winning program or helping get scholarships for their sons and daughters as a big reason for driving them out of the game.

THE GRASS IS GREENER

Gary Bowden’s wrestling program at Canyon High produced some the county’s top teams over the past 19 years. Bowden, the most successful prep wrestling coach in county history, compiled a 212-41-2 record and his teams won five Southern Section 4-A titles.

But last month, Bowden resigned to take a similar position at Thurston High in Springfield, Ore. When Bowden quit, he cited his desire to live in a small town “where you can’t see what you’re breathing.”

Today, he lives in a 35-foot motor home beside the house of an Springfield athletic booster while his wife tries to sell their home in Yorba Linda. He hasn’t seen his wife or his three children since Aug. 30, and they won’t be reunited until Thanksgiving. But Bowden says he has no regrets about his decision to leave the county.

“I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Bowden said. “I walk down the street sometimes expecting a drive-by shooting. Instead, people here say howdy.”

When asked what attracted him to a small town outside of Eugene, Bowden said, “All they had to do was ask me. The day I told my principal at Canyon that I was leaving, the district (Orange Unified School District) announced its plan to reduce coaching stipends.

“It (the announcement) only reinforced my feeling that I was doing the right thing.”

The prospects of a better life for his family in Colorado led Marina basketball Coach Steve Popovich to resign his position in May after 19 seasons.

Popovich didn’t hesitate to accept a teaching and basketball coaching position at Eagle Crest High in Aurora, Colo., saying, “If I’m going to make a change, now’s the time. Either that or they’re going to bury me at half court at Marina High.”

Popovich was leaving behind one of the county’s best programs, which compiled a 268-161 record and won six Sunset League titles. He had coached two of the best big men--Cherokee Parks and Mark Georgeson--produced in the county over the past 10 years.

“Leaving isn’t easy,” he said. “It’s really difficult. But we had to look at the whole picture. Our kids are getting older. If we were going to make a move, I knew this was the time.”

Three months later, Popovich made an about-face. He was unable to sell his house in San Clemente and ultimately declined the offer to teach and coach in Aurora. He has returned as a teacher at Marina, but former Western Coach Greg Hoffman now runs the Vikings’ program.

Still, Popovich has no regrets.

“I miss coaching,” he said. “I miss the interaction with the kids. But I don’t miss the hassles of fund-raising or finding walk-on coaches for your lower-level teams every year.”

THE FUNDS ARE LEANER

“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep some type of continuity in our program in these financial times,” Popovich said.

Popovich said his budget last season was a dozen basketballs, which meant he had to raise about $12,000 to run his program. Among his expenditures were $3,000 for uniforms and warm-ups, $2,000 for a trip to compete in a tournament in Santa Maria and $1,200 to hire a varsity assistant.

“Fortunately, bingo has saved us the past eight years,” he said. “We totally rely on bingo.”

Unfortunately, the fund-raising game has some drawbacks. Every year, Popovich had to organize a group of parents to run the bingo games on Sundays. He also had to organize the transportation for all levels of teams to compete in tournaments and away games.

“I was coordinating all the vans that transported our teams,” he said. “I found that I was coaching kids’ basketball and coaching their parents on how to fund raise. Then, I was a travel agent transporting kids to games.

“I’ve always said that I would coach until I die, but it’s hard when you’re vacationing in Wyoming with your family and worrying about who’s running the bingo game.”

El Toro baseball Coach Dan DeLeon found that sometimes there are strings attached when a group is raising funds for a program.

DeLeon resigned in April after nine seasons, during which his teams won four South Coast League titles. He could best term his last season a year of expectations.

“I had a wonderful booster club that raised $37,000,” DeLeon said. “We raised $20,000 to go to a tournament in Orlando. I was never confronted by a parent, but I felt a certain obligation to play everyone on the team early.

“Then, I’m sure, it was difficult for the parents to understand why their sons weren’t playing later in the year.”

Early in the season, DeLeon said some parents questioned his desire to win after the Chargers blew a 5-0 lead against the county’s top-ranked team, Huntington Beach, and ultimately lost in the Loara tournament.

“So many things happened off the field that ultimately weighed in my decision to resign,” he said. “I spent some time reflecting upon where I’ve been, where I’m going and wondering if it was time for a change. In the end, I decided it was time for a change.”

COACHING COMPLEX KIDS

DeLeon, who resigned to pursue a career in professional baseball as a scout, claims coaching is tougher than ever in the 1990s.

“Kids today need to see immediate gratification,” he said. “If you make a change in their batting style, they want to see results in the very first game. You have to treat them with kid gloves.”

DeLeon said he sometimes cut practices short in order to deal with some of his players’ off-the-field problems.

“You have some high school kids with adult problems,” he said. “Kids’ problems today are alarming. I think the average person would be very surprised to learn what kids have to deal with.

“I didn’t run away from it (players’ problems), but I felt my role as a coach was getting more spread out. Some days, off-the-field counseling took away from practices.”

So DeLeon spent the summer in Mesa, Ariz., where the daily temperature was 115 and completing a nine-inning game that started at 8 a.m. was often a chore.

DeLeon was an assistant coach for the Angels’ rookie league team. He instructed former county stars, including Shawn Holcomb (El Dorado) and Joe Aguirre (Garden Grove). Still, he often found himself wondering about his former players at El Toro.

“I missed the contact with the kids coming up at El Toro, especially in our American Legion program,” he said. “I wondered how some of the boys were doing.”

LIFESTYLE CHANGES

For 15 years, Jim Reames was considered one of the top strategic basketball coaches in the county at Foothill High. Reames’ teams compiled a 236-138 record, won two Century League titles and qualified for the Southern Section playoffs 12 times.

In April, Reames abruptly resigned when he returned home from watching the Final Four in Minneapolis, saying he had lost his enthusiasm.

“It was just time,” he said. “I’ve always felt that if you don’t put 100% into coaching, it’s time to get out. It’s been a lot of fun, but I’m looking forward to having more free time.”

Before last summer, Reames, 46, said he hadn’t had a summer off since he was 22. He went water skiing, jet skiing, landscaped and upgraded his new house in Aliso Viejo and spent some time at the track in Del Mar.

“I didn’t miss playing four games a week and practicing each morning at 8 a.m. all summer,” he said. “I missed the interaction with the kids and socializing with my coaching friends, but it was nice to have a summer off for a change.”

Former El Toro football Coach Bob Johnson has enjoyed his self-imposed retirement from coaching by watching his sons, Bret and Rob, play college football at Michigan State and USC.

Johnson’s Charger teams went 119-45, won six league championships and three Southern Section titles in 13 seasons. His teams qualified for postseason play in 13 consecutive seasons.

“I’m not burned out, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than coaching,” he said. “But I’ve followed my sons’ athletic careers since they were youngsters. I’ve always been there for my kids.”

Johnson attended eight Big Ten games last season and traveled with his wife, Debbie, to Norman, Okla., last week to watch USC upset the Sooners.

“I’m not retired, this is only temporary,” he said. “Going to the games as a fan has been a lot of fun, whether you’re a coach or a dad. It’s something I didn’t want to miss. But I also want to get back into coaching again.”

Popovich said he enjoyed a summer off for the first time in 20 years, taking vacations to San Diego and Catalina.

“I’m looking forward to a Christmas vacation for a change,” he said. “I haven’t had one since I was 14 years old.”