District Down One, Possibly Two, Coaches

New soap opera in the San Dieguito Union High School District: “As the Coaches Churn.”

The district, unable to commit teaching positions to two varsity football coaches, will definitely be looking for one new coach and perhaps a second.

Torrey Pines’ Bob Davis told the school he won’t be back. He coached the team to a 4-5-1 record and into the playoffs for the first time in nine years.

San Dieguito’s Marty Albert hasn’t decided what he’ll do, but concedes that he too will have to look elsewhere if a teaching position doesn’t become available.

The only assurance the two men--and 23 other temporary teachers in the district--had that teaching jobs will be waiting for them in September is if a district parcel tax passes in June. With spring football beginning next week, June is a long time to wait to find out if rent money will be readily available when school resumes in the fall.

Both men were first-year coaches with temporary teaching contracts in 1990-91. Davis took a $14,000 pay cut to leave Palm Springs High and Albert took a $10,000 cut to leave his position in New Mexico. Neither understood at the time they were stepping into positions that would not be guaranteed the following year, although both have been extended invitations to return as football coaches.

Davis has 21 years of teaching experience, Albert has 22. They were given just three years’ seniority when they entered the district.

“I took a pretty hefty pay cut, so it wasn’t a fly-by-night deal,” Davis said. “I never would have (taken the job) if I had known it was a temporary contract. I guess I just didn’t do my homework.”

Albert said he thought the contract would be renewed after an evaluation. He said he is planning on being back in the district and is pursuing every option to guarantee it, even applying for San Dieguito’s vacant athletic director’s position.

Davis said he established a timeline for when the district would have to give him a decision. By Thursday, the deadline passed. The matter had become a matter of principle. He didn’t fault the school, just the district.

“It’s ludicrous to ask people to put their lives on hold,” he said.

Davis said he has looked at coaching options in Florida, Texas and Oklahoma. A Torrey Pines administrator said Davis’ son, Chad, a junior who passed for more than 2,000 yards last year and is on pace to break Todd Marinovich’s career passing yardage mark, has enrolled at Huntington Beach Edison.

“Chad is not enrolled at Edison, not yet,” Davis said. “That’s not to say he’s not going to.”

Davis, who said his son will play wherever he coaches, said he expects to make a decision by the end of the week.

In the meantime, Albert--and Torrey Pines--must fill out their staffs with coaches who have no jobs waiting for them.

Trivia time: After triple jumping 47-10 at the Orange Glen Invitational, Morse’s Cary Taylor said he was striving for Willie Banks’ section record 51-3. That would put Taylor in select company. Who has the second-best triple jump?

Off and running: Most prolific base stealers are quick little guys, or maybe long-legged thoroughbred types, but Ramona has a pair of bulldozers who have been efficient stealing second base this season. Mike Murray (6-2, 280 pounds), a pitcher/first baseman and the starting center on the football team, is six for six in the stolen base department.

Ryno Simpson (6-3, 265) is a first baseman/pitcher and a tight end on the football team. In a game against San Pasqual, Simpson hit a ball that one-hopped the fence, 365 feet away. His coach, Bill Tamburrino, called it a “ground-rule single.” Then Simpson stole second base on a broken hit-and-run play. Like Murray, he is perfect in the stolen base department, one for one.

“It’s more of an element of surprise,” Tamburrino said. “(Opposing teams) see these guys on base and they don’t think they can run, but Mike is quick.

“And, both of them are hitting their weight--that’s amazing.”

Murray is batting .306 and is going to Cal State Long Beach on a football scholarship. Simpson is batting .395 this season.

When he’s not falling down: At Saturday’s Vaquero Frosh-Soph meet, Mira Mesa sophomore Kevin Brigham left track Coach Dennis Lottermoser with a lasting impression.

“I told him to go warm up for the mile relay, that he was going to run his first anchor leg,” Lottermoser said. “The next time I looked over at him, he was practicing his lean at the finish line. He would jog a little bit, then lean into the (imaginary) tape.”

When Brigham first came out for the team, he was practicing the high jump, slipped and “tore the heck out of his knee and arm,” Lottermoser said.

The following week, Brigham was practicing the 300 intermediate hurdles. On the last hurdle of the last practice before the meet, he took a tumble and scratched up his other knee and arm.

A week later, he contracted poison oak while jogging with his dog in a canyon.

On Saturday, Brigham’s luck changed. He broke Mira Mesa’s sophomore long jump record, 21-2. The old record was 20-11 1/2, the school record is 21-8 1/2.

“We just work him in a lot of things,” Lottermoser said. “He’s high jumped 6-0 in a meet and we’re working him toward the varsity in the mile relay. There’s not anything he can’t do.”

If he can stay healthy.

Two teams, opposite directions: Two teams from the same town going in different directions. Orange Glen beat Escondido, 2-1, in the last baseball game before league play began and improved its record to 8-1. Escondido dropped to 1-7. They met again Saturday, Escondido scoring a 2-1 victory. Since that first game between the teams, Orange Glen has gone 1-7, Escondido 7-3.

“Escondido had a pretty tough preseason, a young team and they’ve really grown and are doing some things that are really helping them,” Orange Glen Coach Ken Walker said. “They’ve found their identity. Since we got hammered (12-3) by Poway in our third game, we’ve lost our identity. We were tied in the third inning, (Poway) scored 10 runs with two outs and we’ve never recovered. We were 1-1 and playing pretty well at the time, but all our confidence went right down the tubes.”

Escondido Coach Bill Kutzner noticed as much.

“The pounding by Poway took away their confidence,” he said. “Now they’re walking up there thinking, ‘I hope I can’ rather than ‘I know I can.’ It’s too bad--they had a great start.”

Trivia answer: Former NFL wide receiver Dokie Williams of El Camino triple jumped 51- 3/4 in 1978, shy of the mark set in 1974 by Oceanside’s Banks, the eventual world record holder at 58-11 1/2.