Williams Stays After Gut Check

Jeff Williams said Monday he will remain the football coach at Palmdale High, three days after being introduced as the new coach at Capistrano Valley High.

“I just decided that Palmdale is where I need to be right now,” said Williams, 39, who recently completed his 11th season at Palmdale, his alma mater. “Everything happened so fast.”

It marked the second time in recent months that a coach from the region accepted a job at Capistrano Valley, then changed his mind before ever coaching a game.

Marc Ward, former girls’ basketball coach at Crescenta Valley, took a job at Capistrano Valley last June but resigned for personal reasons before the season started.

Tom White, athletic director at Capistrano Valley, said Williams signed a contract on Friday, prompting the school district to issue a press release later that day after the hiring was approved. Williams denied signing a contract.

“I’m in shock,” said White, who had not chosen a replacement for Williams. “On Saturday, we had talked at length with [Williams] and his staff. On Saturday afternoon, he seemed very enthusiastic and said he could not wait to be here.”

That sentiment changed by Sunday night.

Williams said he was concerned about taking a decrease in pay and about the higher cost of living in Orange County compared to the Antelope Valley. Those factors apparently outweighed Capistrano Valley’s good points, which are considerable.

Capistrano Valley boasts athletic trainers, sixth-period physical education classes for athletic teams, superior facilities and a powerful booster club.

Palmdale has no full-time trainer and recently discontinued sixth-period classes for athletes.

“They’ve got everything I could want down there,” Williams said. “But in this thing, you learn to go with your gut sometimes. . . . And I’ve got a commitment to my [Palmdale] guys.”

Under Williams, Palmdale has grown from one of the region’s weakest programs to a Golden League power.

The Falcons, 0-10 as recently as 1994, won consecutive league titles in 1996 and ‘97, their first football championships in 30 years. Palmdale finished third in the league last season.

Capistrano Valley was an intriguing challenge for Williams, who was born in Orange but raised in Littlerock.

The Cougars, two-time Southern Section champions, have not won a South Coast League game since 1996 and were 20-22-2 overall in four seasons under previous coach Dave Brown.

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Staff writer Mike Terry contributed to this story.