Bosses Don’t Shy Away From Touchy Subjects

Orange County’s community college athletic directors covered subjects from the obvious to inflammatory when asked Monday about their major concerns.

Tom Hermstad of Golden West took on those who leave coaching and opt only to teach. This has often forced colleges into hiring part-time coaches who often aren’t aware of all recruiting, eligibility or transfer rules.

“There are people who should retire,” Hermstad said, “because they don’t want to coach. This is a really controversial thing, but if you were hired to coach, then your coaching career should not be over at 45. They just don’t realize what a beautiful situation they are in.”

Hermstad, like all his counterparts, stressed that women should be given equal opportunities. He also addressed the greater purpose of athletics.

“I want to keep sports in the proper perspective,” he said. “High school and colleges are parts of educational institutions. Coaches have a profound influence on how an athlete acts the rest of his life. It’s one hell of a responsibility.”

Saddleback’s Keith Calkins also looked at the big picture.

“We need to make sure that athletics is a component of the comprehensive part of the college,” he said. “I hope it remains that way at all the colleges in the state. . . . We also want to make sure we do the right academic counseling for our athletes.”

Dave Dobos at Rancho Santiago said his college hired 35 faculty members this fall, none in the athletic department.

“The likelihood that someone who is hired is going to coach 15 or 20 or 25 years is unrealistic,” he said. “Sometimes we’re hiring people who don’t know the systems in which we operate. We are a major bureaucracy like the DMV or the post office. We’re riddled with paperwork.”

Dobos is also dealing with resentment from coaches who perceive certain programs benefit financially and otherwise because of efforts to comply with gender-equity rules. Dobos also addressed distractions.

“We have athletes who besides playing a sport, have to fight to maintain their eligibility, plus they have mouths to feed and bad habits to break.”

Barry Wallace at Orange Coast brought up “the attitude of some coaches and administrators toward winning at all costs. I’m also concerned with the hiring of coaches with known recruiting violations and not penalizing coaches for their actions on and off the field.”

Wallace’s final worry was that of finding coaches “who are not only good [coaches] but good instructors.”

Aracely Mora of Irvine Valley discussed NCAA academic reform.

“Our athletes’ window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller. The NCAA is asking for more accountability and structure from our academic programs but our resources are staying the same and the clerical work has increased.”

Mora raised the concern about the rule that prevents coaches from legally making first contact with out-of-district athletes.

“There is certainly a lot of talk about the first-contact rule,” Mora said. “It seems like every week I have a coach come to me concerned about the rule. . . . I’m not sure it’s enforceable.”

Dick Van Voorhis at Cypress brought up another recruiting-related topic.

“Many cross-country coaches have talked about all the international athletes. Are we using these athletes at the sake of not using the local kids? This is something they have talked about for many years but the state doesn’t seem to want to address the issue.”