Estancia asks Fertig to step aside

Rick Devereux

He did not want to remain a head football coach forever, but Craig

Fertig did want to stay at the helm of the Estancia High football

team a little bit longer.

“When I was hired I told [Estancia Principal Tom] Antal that I

would only be the head coach for three years,” Fertig said after it

was announced Monday that was he asked to step down late last week.

“We told the football team Friday,” Estancia Boys Athletic

Director Tim Parsel said. “We need to find an on-campus guy.”

Fertig said that during the recent releagueing meetings, concern

was raised that Fertig is not a teacher, a rarity for head football

coaches in Orange County.

“That’s what got this whole thing rolling,” Fertig said. “Antal

came up to me and said they need to have an on-campus coach.”

Fertig said that a CIF Southern Section rule dictates that the

football coach needs to be a teacher. But an administrator at another

Newport-Mesa school said no such rule exists and there is at least

one walk-on varsity football coach in Orange County.

Fertig helped breath life into a sagging program when he was hired

in 2003. The Eagles went 1-18 in the two seasons before Fertig was

hired.

Estancia went 3-7 in his first year and 4-6 in the fall, including

an 18-13 season-ending win over crosstown rival Costa Mesa to win the

Battle for the Bell, ending the Mustangs’ three-year hold on the

prize.

Fertig said he was proud that Estancia regained the Victory Bell

under his watch, but the impact he had on the players is what he is

most proud of.

“When I first started here, there were 26 kids and 19 of them were

ineligible,” he said. “Now we’ve got 62 and not one of them had to go

to summer school.”

The turnaround in the program has been noticed by school

officials.

“We’re happy with the progress we have made and hope Coach Fertig

can stay involved with the program,” Parsel said.

Fertig will assume the newly created position of director of

football operations for Estancia, which, he said, entails “directing

football, I assume.

“Antal wants me to stay involved and I want to stay involved

because I know this team is ready to get over that hump and become a

real good team.”

Assistant coaches Ernst Bucher and Josh Tribe have also left the

program.

Bucher, the former offensive coordinator, will be an assistant at

Aliso Niguel and Tribe, the receivers and quarterbacks coach, has

accepted a position elsewhere.

Fertig said the four other assistants will remain with the team,

including defensive coordinator Dave Olson, who applied and was

considered for the Estancia head coaching job when Fertig was hired

in 2003.

“I would like to have Dave as the new coach,” Fertig said. “I have

told him that he can go as far as he wants to as a coach and I will

try to help him get there.”

Under Olson’s guidance the Eagles posted their first shutout since

2000 -- a 19-0 win over Buena Park -- in the third game last season.

But if Olson, a former head coach at Los Amigos, is not promoted,

Fertig said he would helpthe new coach any way he could.

“I’m not going to tell the guy how to coach, but if he asks me a

question I will answer it. If he asks for advice, I will give it,”

Fertig said. “I think it’s an advancement [for the football program]

if the right guy is brought in as head coach.”

Fertig, 62, has worked as a television analyst for USC football.

He threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Rod Sherman in USC’s

20-17 upset of previously unbeaten Notre Dame at the Coliseum.

He was the head coach at Oregon State for four years and an

assistant at USC for nine.

Fertig was an assistant coach for the Portland Storm of the

now-defunct World Football League and was a scout for the Tampa Bay

Buccaneers.

Fertig was an assistant athletic director at USC from 1983-90.