Hollywood High opens up all of its coaching positions

In the coaches wanted section of the Los Angeles City Section website, there’s a lot of openings at Hollywood High.

Boys and girls volleyball. Football. Boys and girls soccer. Boys and girls cross-country.

It turns out the new Hollywood administration has told its coaches they must reapply for their positions.

Some parents are upset about the decision because many coaches may end up leaving.

“It’s a sad time at Hollywood,” said one parent in an email.

In fact, successful football coach Frank Galvan said he will not reapply. His teams made the playoffs for six consecutive years and lost once in the City Division III final.

“I’m just fed up with this silliness,” he said.

The administration is also requiring students to sign a contract if they get a D, F or U, they could be ineligible for sports even if they have a 2.0 grade-point average.

Trent Cornelius, the Los Angeles Unified School District sports coordinator, said, “They want to raise the bar and create high expectations for their coaches and student athletes.”

Hollywood’s basketball program was banned from the postseason after failing to adequately process transfer information, resulting in ineligible players.

The problem with telling your entire coaching staff, “Please reapply,” is that the good coaches might say, “I don’t need this.” Then you’re left with a not-so-pleasant task of rebuilding an entire program from scratch. And the pool of candidates who want to coach in the LAUSD is not exactly large. It’s no wonder parents are concerned.

“This is not uncommon for a school to have new administration and new AD and say, ‘Let’s open everything up for equity purposes,’” Cornelius said. “In many cases, they’re going to hire the same people. Sometimes they want to have a clean slate and have them accept positions under the terms they are laying out for their program.”

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