Zeich Stepping Down After 35 Years

After 35 years, 203 victories and 15 league titles, Bob Zeich is retiring from coaching lower-level football at Foothill High.

Most of Zeich’s victories have come at the sophomore level, where he spent 25 years.

The last eight years, Zeich has coached the Foothill freshmen. From 1992 to 1995, his teams won four straight Century League titles.

This year’s team is 7-1 and headed for a first-place showdown with undefeated El Modena in the last game of the season.

Zeich said he feels the time is right to step away from coaching.

“I’m old school, pretty conservative and disciplined,” he said. “You get too frustrated asking for things these days. I still enjoy it, but not if I have to roughhouse kids too much to get them to listen.”

These days, it’s rare for a coach to spend most of his career at the lower levels.

But Zeich, 57, said he never had much desire to coach varsity football. Former Foothill varsity Coach Bill Snyder, now head coach at Kansas State, asked Zeich to be a member of his staff in the 1970s, but Zeich politely turned him down.

“I always thought I could manage my time better at the lower levels,” said Zeich, who was an assistant varsity coach on Jerry Howell’s staff in the late 1980s. “I didn’t have to be on campus on the weekends and I could devote more of my time to the classroom and my family.”

Zeich, a mathematics teacher, has also coached varsity and junior varsity boys’ tennis at Foothill since 1972.

He will leave Foothill at the end of the school year.

“I’ll miss the competition and the activity,” Zeich said. “I worry about slowing down, so I’ll continue to play tennis three days a week and I’m sure I’ll get back to Europe a few times.”

EDISON SEEDED NO. 1

The field hockey Tournament of Champions begins this week with undefeated Edison seeded No. 1.

Edison (14-0) recorded 11 shutouts on its way to a second consecutive Sunset League title, giving up three goals all season. The Chargers, the tournament’s defending champions, will host eighth-seeded Santa Ana (3-7-4) in the first round at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Marina (10-4) is seeded second and will host La Verne Bonita.

Newport Harbor (8-2-4) hosts Santiago (5-5-4), and Huntington Beach (8-3-3) hosts Fountain Valley (8-3-3) in other first-round games.

BIG GAMES CHANGE

Before the football season began, Newport Harbor Coach Jeff Brinkley thought the biggest Sea View League game of the year would be last Friday’s game against Woodbridge.

But then Laguna Hills upset Woodbridge, and Newport Harbor-Laguna Hills became the big game. Then after beating Laguna Hills, the Sailors went into Friday’s game needing to beat Woodbridge to avoid a bottleneck for first place.

The Woodbridge game again became the big game.

“Top to bottom, this is probably as equally balanced as the league has been,” Brinkley said before Friday’s game. “I’ve scouted every team in person, and every team can beat the other one. I really think it will come down to the wire, scrambling for playoff spots and the league championship.”

Brinkley was wrong.

The Sailors kept things a little less jumbled by beating Woodbridge, 28-0.

The Sailors clinched a share of the league title, and will go into the playoffs as the league’s No. 1 team.

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Staff writers Melanie Neff, Peter Yoon and Martin Henderson contributed to this story.