Applicants for Burroughs Coaching Position Wary of a Repeat : High school football: Shoddy process used to pick Burbank coach worries Fong, Dos Remedios.

Richard Fong said he nearly canceled his interview. Robert Dos Remedios said he was finished dealing with the Burbank Unified School district before he was prodded by a booster.

But despite being also-rans in the bizarre and controversial hiring of John Hazelton as football coach at Burbank High last month, both have become candidates for the Burroughs football coaching position vacated by Gary Bernardi.

Fong and Dos Remedios, hoping for better luck a second time around, will give the Burbank school district a second chance.

“I told them I won’t even think about this unless it’s an open thing,” said Dos Remedios, 27, an assistant coach at Glendale College. “I just want it to be open.”

Dos Remedios and Fong, The Times’ Valley Coach of the Year at St. Genevieve in 1993, were finalists for the Burbank job. Days before they were scheduled to be interviewed by a selection committee, a Burbank school trustee said Hazelton would be hired.

“The day before I interviewed I called and asked if it was a done deal,” Fong said. “After I talked to them, I was still thinking about not going. But I wanted to do the interview.”

Fong said his interview was delayed for one hour, and while he waited he heard loud arguing on the other side of the door.

Hazelton eventually was hired. But in the aftermath, Fong and Dos Remedios were troubled by two notions: 1) that Hazelton’s selection was a foregone conclusion, and, 2) that dissension ran rampant within school district.

Fong and Dos Remedios said certain Burbank High administrators picked them but were overruled by a majority vote of the selection committee. The voting procedure--being used for the first time since a new trustee changed the rules--took the hiring authority away from the school principal and gave it to the school board.

The principal was reduced to committee member. The committee consisted of parents, administrators and high school athletes.

On Feb. 16, the night the school board chose Hazelton, Burbank Principal Keiko Hentell was demoted to English teacher.

“I’m almost positive she voted for me, and that was part of the reason she got fired,” Dos Remedios said. “She decided to tell the committee, ‘This is who the administration supports.’ But she was getting swarmed.”

Burroughs Principal Tim Buchanan said there will be no infighting when the 12-member committee, of which he is a part, starts interviews Monday. He supports the new selection format.

“We won’t vote,” he said. “We will get a consensus. We will have a ranking system (that measures qualifications of candidates).”

But it remains to be seen if this less personalized approach will reduce a pre-interview favorite.

“Somebody saying it was a done deal before I interviewed made the district and the school look silly,” Dos Remedios said.

A done deal? The same anonymous school district official who paraded Hazelton said Burroughs’ boosters are seeking former San Fernando Coach Tom Hernandez. Hernandez, who has been employed for 15 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District, said Wednesday he was negotiating for tenure with Burbank district officials. “It has to be the right situation where I don’t lose a lot of money,” Hernandez said.

The application deadline is today. Buchanan said Thursday that Hernandez has applied.

Bob Dunivant is the one district trustee who would figure to have a keen interest. He taught at Burroughs for 32 1/2 years and was football coach for 25. Yet Dunivant, who is not a member of the committee, said he’ll mind his own business and advises other board members to do the same.

“I don’t have a recommendation, and I don’t think any board member should be sticking his nose in (the committee’s) business,” Dunivant said. “All we’re going to do is rubber stamp who the committee selects.

“And check references.”