Societal Decay Eroded Stroh’s Enthusiasm for Coaching

A Times sportswriter once approached Darryl Stroh after a baseball game in which the Granada Hills High coach was less than pleased with his team’s losing performance.

A comment, Coach?

“Just put down that Darryl Stroh was [ticked] off and didn’t want to talk,” Stroh snapped.

That’s Stroh. Even when he doesn’t want to speak his mind, he isn’t afraid to tell you how he feels.

“I don’t have much patience,” Stroh said this week. “I know what I want to get done and I don’t like people getting in my way. And I always express myself.”

Stroh, at times temperamental but always refreshingly straightforward during his 27 years as the Highlanders’ coach, has opined plenty over the years--mostly in support of morality, discipline and working-class values.

Now he’s tired of talking and tired of coaching.

Stroh, 57, the most-successful baseball coach in Valley history, perhaps made his most-significant utterance last week when he announced his retirement from coaching effective the end of this season. Granada Hills (13-14) will enter the City Section 4-A Division playoffs Tuesday at Palisades.

“I don’t know if it’s so much that I’m burned out,” said Stroh, adding that he plans to retire from teaching in three years. “I just felt like it was time to take some time.”

Stroh’s retirement will mark the end of an era, of sorts. Area coaching not only is losing its dean among baseball coaches but a significant and influential voice who has more than walked his talk.

Stroh guided Granada Hills to five City baseball titles, including back-to-back championships in 1978 and ’79 with powerhouse teams that included John Elway, now quarterback for the Denver Broncos.

The school’s head football coach from 1985-93, Stroh led the Highlanders to a shocking upset of powerful Carson for the 1987 City title.

Throughout his tenure Stroh, a noted disciplinarian, has emphasized citizenship and character above victories and losses.

“The teams that Darryl Stroh have coached were always well-disciplined and motivated, and they showed a great deal of class,” said Steve Marden, who squared off against Stroh as baseball coach at San Fernando from 1976-93. “That’s Darryl Stroh. He developed young men ahead of developing baseball players.”

Anyone familiar with Stroh knows of his credo: “It’s my way or the highway.” There’s no place for individuality in Stroh’s camp, and conformity, the coach long has espoused, builds character.

Among Stroh’s longtime edicts is a prohibition on long hair, funky hair, facial hair, earrings or any of that sort of stuff that has come along over the years.

“We have to shave every day,” senior shortstop Jarrod Penwarden said. “Everybody pretty much falls in line.”

When a junior varsity basketball player at Birmingham last season made a commotion by dyeing his hair pink, it wasn’t difficult to figure Stroh’s take on the issue. Or his reaction to a local newspaper column that suggested players and coaches compromise on such matters.

“I almost threw up,” Stroh said.

“It sounds frivolous, but I’ve always felt that the more we emphasize ourselves, the harder it is to be a team. There are places for individual expression and it’s important. But when you’re trying to build unity it’s important to take those things away.

“We can’t have everybody doing their own thing, going their own way.”

Yet sadly, Stroh said, that is exactly what he increasingly is witnessing among high school students. And it has contributed to his decision to go his own way.

Call it a generation gap, Stroh says, but players willing to buy into the old-fashioned, by-the-book approach are getting harder to come by.

Actually, Stroh says, the issue runs even deeper.

A parting shot?

“Society in general is having a total breakdown of things that are important: discipline, taking responsibility for your own actions,” Stroh said. “When you’re in education, you’re in the forefront of this whole thing and you see the decay in our society. Kids are just raised without having to know responsibility. That’s the part that really frustrates me.”

Stroh, who began teaching in 1963 and has coached for more than 30 years, said his career has been rewarding, despite feelings of frustration. It’s just that, over the years, it has become more difficult for Stroh to gauge his influence. But it assuredly has been huge.

Perhaps the best measure is Stroh’s own children. His daughter, Noelle, is an elementary school teacher in Santa Clarita and Darryl Jr. recently graduated from Azusa Pacific and soon will begin student-teaching.

“I really didn’t want him to do it,” Stroh said. “He says he wants to teach and coach.”

*

Kennedy last won a City Section softball title in 1982. Since then, El Camino Real has won seven. But that’s history as far as those at Kennedy are concerned.

“We haven’t really been talking about 1982,” said Sandra Durazo, a junior pitcher for the Golden Cougars. “We’re just looking at it like a regular game.”

Still, the stakes will be high when Kennedy (18-1) plays El Camino Real (16-4) for the 4-A Division title Tuesday at 5 p.m. at UCLA. Kennedy has not reached the final since 1982.

For Durazo (18-1), a three-year starter, it might not hurt to reflect. She had 11 strikeouts in a 2-1 victory in 10 innings over El Camino Real in March.

“It was tough,” Durazo said. “They’re a real tough team. But our coach has been on us a lot and we’ve been trying hard and we’ve just kept winning.”

Verdugo Hills will meet South Gate for the 3-A title at 3 p.m.