Muir Makes Coaching Change

Pasadena Muir High, annually one of the Southland’s top schools for football talent, made an abrupt coaching change on Wednesday.

Jack Allen, in his second year as head coach, was relieved of his duties and replaced by former assistant Mike Harrison. Harrison, a history teacher at the school, will serve on an interim basis and the job will be opened up at the end of the season.

Muir, rated high in several preseason polls, is struggling at 2-2. It is coming off a 39-12 loss to Los Alamitos last Thursday.

“Our record had nothing to do with why I let Jack go,” said Gary Talbert, Muir’s principal. “Contrary to popular belief, coaches here are not under tremendous pressure to win. After a series of meetings with Jack, I just decided I was not happy with the direction of the program and that a change was needed.”

Talbert said he met with between 15 and 20 varsity players on Monday, who expressed varying concerns about the team. Many of those players suggested Jim Brownfield, who coached the school to a pair of Southern Section championships in the 1980s, be brought back. Brownfield coaches girls’ track at the school.

“I wasn’t contacted about coming back,” Brownfield said. “I told Jack earlier in the season that if things got ugly and he needed some help, I would do what I could, but that’s as far as it went.”

Allen was 8-3 last season, but Muir was eliminated in the first round of the Division II playoffs.

Harrison is an unlikely choice. He has never been a high school head football coach before and has limited experience as an assistant. He coached the baseball team at Muir in 1992 and ’93 but was reprimanded several times for arguing with umpires.

Harrison is Muir’s eighth coach since 1987.