NOTES : Rancho Alamitos Fires Girls’ Basketball Coach

Pete Pyle, who replaced Bob Becker at Rancho Alamitos as girls’ basketball coach, was fired Tuesday, one week after players in the program voted by almost a 2-1 ratio that he not return as coach.

“This is not a mutual thing. This is not an ‘I resigned kind of thing.’ ” Pyle said. “You have to please the parents during the season, and now it’s to the point where I have to please the girls at practice too. The girls are voting who should coach and who shouldn’t. If you can’t yell at them because they’re going to vote you out of a job, you’re in a tough position. To me, that doesn’t make sense.

“If that’s the way it’s going to be, I don’t want to be in the profession.”

Rancho Alamitos was 8-14 this season, 6-6 in the Garden Grove League. A year ago in his first season, the Vaqueros were 20-7, 13-1 and shared the league title.

But the Vaqueros had a history of excellence under Becker, who directed them to three Southern Section finals (and one title) in four years. But under Pyle--who graduated from Rancho in 1981 and coached the freshman boys for four years--some of that momentum Becker had developed in the program slipped away.

Among player complaints were the lack of a summer tournament and Rancho Alamitos skipping the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions--a tournament that included some of the top teams in the state and nation.

Principal Tom Robbins said he was told Tuesday of Athletic Director Dan Rankin’s decision, which came after 23 returning players in the program voted 13-7, with three abstentions, that Pyle not return.

“I would hire him again to coach boys, without question,” Rankin said. “It was his inability to adjust his style to deal with the girls.”