Glen Fisher named Costa Mesa High football coach [updated]
Costa Mesa High has yet to break ground on its new on-site football stadium, but the school is laying down the foundation for the future of its football program.
The Mustangs have found their new coach to help them rebuild a program that has gone 17 seasons without winning a CIF Southern Section playoff game. Glen Fisher said on Thursday that Costa Mesa has turned to him to take over the Mustangs.
Fisher, who spent the last two seasons in charge of Beckman, said he’s “very excited” about the opportunity at Costa Mesa. He will be the Mustangs’ first on-campus football coach since Tom Baldwin taught and coached at the school in 2004.
The Mustangs have been through three walk-on coaches since Baldwin, and they compiled a 43-62 overall record in the past 10 seasons.
Fisher replaces Wally Grant, who stepped down in December after going 2-8 overall and 2-3 in the Orange Coast League, failing to reach the Southern Division playoffs for the second time during Grant’s four years.
Under Grant, the Mustangs suffered their second losing season and placed fourth. Grant went 21-21 overall and 13-7 in league with the Mustangs, including claiming an undefeated league title two years ago.
While at the helm of Beckman, Fisher never finished first in the Pacific Coast League, always in fifth place at 1-4. The Patriots failed to qualify for the Southern Division playoffs in Fisher’s two seasons, posting a 4-6 overall mark each time.
Before he became Beckman’s coach in 2013, Fisher served as an assistant with the Patriots from 2007-11. As the defensive coordinator those last two seasons, the Patriots made Southern Division finals appearances, losing to Garden Grove, 31-30, in 2010, and Corona del Mar, 14-13, in 2011.
The site of both of those championship games was Orange Coast College, which is right across the street from where Fisher will guide the Mustangs. In a couple of seasons, Fisher and the Mustangs will have their own place to call home on Friday nights.
Costa Mesa and archrival Estancia have shared Jim Scott Stadium, which is on the Eagles’ campus, since it opened in 2008. Katrina Foley, the Costa Mesa football booster vice president of fundraising and director of academics and who has two sons, Sammy and Ben Swanson, playing football at the school, said having Fisher as the head coach and a new stadium in place by the fall of 2016 bodes well for the Mustangs’ chances of competing. The program has lost in the opening round of the playoffs in each of its past 10 appearances.
“He beat [most of] the teams we lost to [in the last four years],” said Foley, referring to Fisher’s time as an assistant at Beckman, which defeated Estancia four times from 2010-11, and three other programs, Northwood, Godinez and Ocean View, the Mustangs have faced. “I’m thrilled that [the next Costa Mesa football coach is] a teacher. The teacher is there on campus interacting with the kids and they’re not waiting [around for the coach to show up]. I think in general walk-on coaches who are not teachers, and it doesn’t matter what the sport is, sometimes with their work conflicts, they’re not able to give 100% to the program. We can’t move the football program without a coach on campus.
“I’m really pleased with the priorities the new principal [Jacob Haley] has taken on and I just believe that he will make sure that we have a quality sports program at Costa Mesa for the future.”