Baseball: Scott Muckey ends his 27-season coaching career at Crespi

Twenty-seven seasons is a long time to be the head baseball coach at a private school and survive the politics, the parental complaints, the player squabbles.

And yet, Scott Muckey pulled it off year after year at Encino Crespi, sending more than 20 players to professional baseball and dozens more to the collegiate ranks.

On Wednesday, Muckey announced he was stepping down as head coach and retiring as a teacher.

JV coach Mike Glendenning, a 1994 Crespi grad who has been a longtime private coach, will take over the program.

Muckey said he had grown tired of the 12-hour daily grind of teaching and coaching. He said he could still see himself coaching as an assistant down the road.

Among Muckey’s best players were major leaguers Jeff Suppan and Trevor Plouffe. He guided the Celts to two Southern Section titles and 11 league titles since becoming head coach in 1988.

He was one of the most respected pitching coaches in the Southland. His teams were always well behaved in the dugout and rarely lost their composure, because he treated his players like adults and expected them to act with class.

Ironically, when he was hired in the fall of 1987, he didn’t expect to stay very long. He had been a successful junior college coach who switched to high school coaching only because he lost his teaching job and Crespi offered a full-time position.

“I remember coming to Crespi and thinking it would be temporary . . . and never leaving,” he said.

It took him 27 seasons to finally leave, but Muckey helped create quite a legacy for Crespi baseball.

Twitter:@LATSondheimer