LOCAL NOTES

Heritage Christian is dropping its football program and adopting a wait-and-see policy about five other sports because of a sharp drop in enrollment, Athletic Director Tom Caffrey said Monday.

Only 10 players showed up for fall football practice. The private school in central Anaheim, which has an annual tuition of about $4,100 a year, expects to enroll 85 high school-age students, down nearly 20% from last year. Overall, including its elementary and middle school programs, enrollment is expected to drop from 144 students to 112, Caffrey said.

“We lost a lot of students who could not return for financial reasons, a couple moved out of town and some decided to try public schools,” he said.

Caffrey coached the Patriots in their first full season of 11-man football in 1997.

“This is very, very disappointing. We were making some real progress with the program,” he said. “But I think we will be OK in other sports. We’ll just have to take it one step at a time.”

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Southern California Christian High hired Alan Degenhardt to coach football.

SCC officials were faced with dropping football this season after Brad Hollenback, who was hired three weeks ago to replace last year’s coach Mitch Ryan, changed his mind.

Degenhardt, 44, who teaches at Park Private Day School in Costa Mesa, coached freshman football at Marina last year, and freshman baseball at Huntington Beach this spring. He coached freshman baseball at Huntington Beach in 1993.

He said he had not planned to coach this school year until he read about SCC’s situation.

“I saw an article that they would not have a coach and thought that was pretty sad,” Degenhardt said. “I felt [I was] led to contact them and see if I could help them out.”

“I liked his experience, demeanor and apparent ability to work with kids,” Principal Tom Trueblood said.

Degenhardt will meet with the team and his coaching staff for the first time today.

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Defending champion Bob Jacobson of Fountain Valley won the Orange County Amateur golf championship Monday at Rancho San Joaquin in Irvine, finishing at 14-under 202 for 54 holes in the three-day men’s championship flight. Kevin Barclay of Rancho Santa Margarita finished second with 219. Megan Morgan of Huntington Beach shot 222 to win the women’s division.