Challenge Not New for Caffrey

Tom Caffrey has spent 30 years building small school football programs, but says he’s never faced what he’s up against at Fairmont High, where brains over brawn has always been the school motto.

The high-intensity college prep school hired Caffrey last spring to start its first 11-man football team. Caffrey said that none of the 29 students who attended spring practice had played football before. Many of them missed summer practices and passing league games because of vacations.

“We only got started on this back in March and a lot of the families had already made plans to be gone during summer,” Caffrey said. “Or they are going to miss the first week of training camp on vacation. All we can do is try to get them to think in terms of the commitment it takes to be successful, to win. A lot of them don’t know what is involved in that.”

The school intends to play a freelance schedule in Division XIII, but has yet to secure a home field. “We hope to play at Glover Stadium, but if we can’t get that I’ll go to Cerritos Valley Christian or maybe the practice field at Orange Lutheran,” Caffrey said. Fairmont intend to play all games on Saturdays. Still, Caffrey says he’s having as much fun as he has in years. Previously, he coached at Heritage Christian when the Patriots went from eight-man to 11-man football. Before that, he built Whittier Christian into a small school powerhouse that won Southern Section titles in 1983 and 1984.

Heritage eliminated football last year because of a drop in enrollment and that drove Caffrey, who was also the school athletic director, to look around.

“Fairmont really has gone gung-ho on football,” he said. “We’ve got brand new equipment, great stuff, and we’ve been able to work with the Anaheim schools so we can get a place to practice. But it’ll be a year or two before we start to look like a real good ball club.”

COACH WANTED, AGAIN

Athletic Director Rick Curtis of Northwood, which opens in September, is on a hunt once again for a boys’ soccer coach after the resignation of Mario Sanchez, who was hired on June 3. Sanchez, well known as a local club coach, announced on July 22 that he had been hired as an assistant men’s coach at his alma mater, Fresno State.

“It was an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Curtis said.

The timing of the resignation, however, couldn’t have been worse for Curtis. The county’s club soccer season kicked into full gear this past weekend and the start of classes is a little more than a month away.

“Obviously, we’re looking for somebody who will be here quite a while to build the program,” Curtis said.

The TimberWolves expect to field only frosh/soph and junior varsity teams this season, but will most likely have a varsity team a year from now.

CLOSING POINT

Joey Bahash, who replaced Caffrey as athletic director at Heritage Christian, said that the Patriots will return to eight-man football this season. Bahash, the former Ocean View girls’ soccer coach, said that a new marketing effort by the school has stemmed declining enrollment.

“Right now we have about 15-20 players out for the team,” he said. “But our numbers of student is going up and I hope we’ll be back to 11-man football by 2000.”

The Patriots will become the seventh team in the Express League and will play their games at Whittier Christian. The only eight-man Orange County matchup of the year is Sept. 25 at 11 a.m. when Heritage plays Liberty Christian at Hare School Park in Garden Grove.