Burnout No Longer Laughing Matter for Brea’s Walton

When Bob Walton was younger, he would laugh about coaches who retired because they were “burned out.”

Now, after 25 years of coaching high school tennis, he is among them. Walton, who turns 50 this year, resigned Thursday as boys’ and girls’ varsity tennis coach at Brea Olinda High.

“I said, ‘That’ll never happen to me,’ ” Walton said. “But it kind of did. It’s the old scenario. The fire just wasn’t there. I just decided it’s time to try to do something else in my life. It’s been a really good run.”

Walton is among the most successful tennis coaches in county history--winning three Southern Section titles and more than 500 matches, all with the Laguna Beach girls’ team. He began his tennis coaching career in 1975 at Santiago, where he took over a program that hadn’t won a match in three years. In his second year, Walton led the Cavaliers to a 9-9 record.

“That was one of the neatest things I’ll remember about coaching,” he said. “We almost made the playoffs with a group of kids who had never picked up a racket before they came to me.”

In 1982, Walton left Santiago to be Art Wall’s junior varsity coach at Laguna Beach, a school known for tennis excellence. After three seasons under Wall, Walton took over the boys’ program.

“Pretty much everything I learned about coaching high school tennis, I learned from Art Wall,” he said.

With Jon Leach as his star player, Walton led the Artists to the section semifinals from 1988 to 1990.

“I got my foot in the door with the Leaches,” Walton said. “I got to see Rick [Leach] play at Wimbledon and I got to meet a lot of incredible people in tennis because of the Leach family.”

In 12 seasons as the Artist girls’ coach, Walton compiled a 170-50 record. He won Division II titles in 1992, 1993 and 1994. In 1995, Laguna Beach lost the Division II title to Villa Park by one game.

The next year, Walton assumed a new challenge, taking over a struggling Brea Olinda girls’ team.

“I missed teaching tennis,” he said. “I didn’t just want to put lineups together.”

In his first season, Walton led the Wildcats to a 22-2 record and a Division III quarterfinal berth. In four seasons, Walton’s teams were 77-13 and were undefeated in the Orange League. Walton has also coached the Brea boys’ team the last two years. This year’s team finished the regular season 12-11 overall and tied for second place in league at 7-3.

Walton, who is also resigning his spot on the section tennis advisory committee, said he started thinking about leaving high school tennis last year, when John Stephens of Dana Hills, Kerry Leander of Capistrano Valley, Joan Willett of Woodbridge and Bill Smith of Mission Viejo retired.

“The kids wouldn’t notice it, but I wasn’t spending as much time preparing for matches as I used to,” he said. “I found myself looking at my watch, thinking, ‘Is practice going to end?’ The kids need someone who’s going to be energetic. It wasn’t fair to the kids.”

But Walton also said that sometimes the kids weren’t fair to him.

“The kids have changed,” said Walton, who also coached lower level girls’ basketball at Santiago and Laguna Beach. “More of them are out there for themselves. I was really spoiled by what Rick Leach did at Laguna, playing doubles with the worst player on the team so he could win the most points for the team. You just wouldn’t see that done today.”

A walk-on coach his entire high school career, Walton has been director of tennis for Laguna Beach’s parks and recreation department and he has worked for Pomona’s parks and recreation department. He begins his life after high school tennis this summer, as director of Big Brothers and Big Sisters in the Coachella Valley.

PAIRINGS TODAY

Top-ranked University (14-0) is expected to be seeded first in Division II when the section releases its playoff pairings today. Second-ranked Corona del Mar (17-6), the defending Division I champion, was ranked third in the latest coaches’ poll and will probably be seeded third. That means the Sea Kings would probably see second-ranked North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake in a semifinal.

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