High School Football: Scott Meyer to leave CdM for Servite
Scott Meyer, who led the Corona del Mar High football program to unprecedented success, winning three CIF Southern Section Southern Division titles and a CIF State Division III title in four years, will be named Anaheim Servite’s new football coach on Friday, sources said.
Alan Clinton, Servite’s athletic director, said in a text message on Thursday that the Friars hope to announce who is taking over the program on Friday at 5 p.m. When asked whether Meyer was the new coach at Servite, Clinton did not respond.
Meyer is expected to tell his CdM players during sixth period on Friday that he is leaving for Servite, a source said. Sources added that Meyer’s top two assistants at CdM, defensive coordinator Dan O’Shea and offensive coordinator Kevin Hettig, would not be joining Meyer at Servite.
Meyer did not respond to messages left on his voicemail or text messages on Thursday night. Meyer had been speculated to become the Friars’ next coach by Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times.
Meyer said in a text that he was not the next Servite football coach Thursday morning. Later in the day, a source said Servite aggressively pursued Meyer, essentially giving him an offer he could not refuse.
Meyer, who went 50-6 overall and 19-1 in Pacific Coast League play with the Sea Kings, will inherit a Servite program that went a combined 10-13 the past two seasons under-then coach A.J. Gass. Servite lost Gass in December, when Gass became the coach at Bakersfield Garces.
Last season, CdM (10-2, 5-0 in league) claimed its third consecutive undefeated league championship, before losing in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Southwest Division playoffs. The 28-10 setback at Trabuco Hills ended the Sea Kings’ run at a fourth straight section crown.
Meyer, who teaches at CdM, moves to Servite, which competes in the Trinity League, considered one of the toughest leagues in California, and in the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division playoffs, the elite division in the state. Servite placed fifth in league at 1-4 and lost to Long Beach Poly, 34-33, in the quarterfinals last season. The Friars finished 4-7 overall, suffering their second losing season in three years.
Servite has appeared in eight section finals, winning five of them. The most recent championship came in 2010 in the Pac-5 Division under then-coach Troy Thomas.
The Friars turn to Meyer, a 50-year-old who has shown he has that championship pedigree. Two seasons after leading CdM to a historic 16-0 season, Meyer is off to his third head coaching job, his first at a private school, which has a lot more resources than CdM.