Mustang coaches dropping like flies

ROGER CARLSON

“Gee, I told you so. Somehow that doesn’t get it done.”

I admit it. Will Smith said it first. But I was carrying it around

with me long before the release of I, Robot.

My prediction a few months ago that the 2003-04 athletic seasons

would be a curtain call for several coaches in the Costa Mesa venue

sadly rang true as the school year wound down, and I believe, as

tacitly implied, it didn’t so much as stir a breeze around the

Mustangs’ administrative offices or in the glass house on Baker.

Initially I thought the best advice I could give any athlete at

Costa Mesa, or Estancia for that matter, would be to obtain a

district transfer and head for Corona del Mar or Newport Harbor. Or,

find a different district entirely, such as the Irvine School

District where normality, and success, rules in the classrooms and

the playing fields.

But you know, people like the Carich, Amburgey, Krikorian and

Waldron families are Costa Mesans and they deserve to see their sons

play for Costa Mesa, on an even playing field.

And it’s not even when your coaches are shortchanged at every

turn. And as fate has delivered, the Mustangs are without a football

coach [Dave Perkins,] as well.

Perkins said on Friday he felt his days were numbered the first

time he met his principal, Fred Navarro, and the subject was a

problem Perkins had with his 2002 teaching schedule.

“[Navarro] said, ‘You can choose to coach, or not. It doesn’t

matter to me.’ ”

The shortcomings at Costa Mesa are not something that has just

popped up. They’ve been there for years and the cancers that ate into

the basketball, baseball and football problems could have been

solved, easily, had they been a priority at the top, starting with

the principal and including the district superintendent and all of

his underlings.

Do you remember Bob Shupp, the on-campus swim coach who walked

away from his post? Guess who replaced him. Nobody.

Do you remember John Carney, the on-campus football and track and

field coach who left his posts? Guess who replaced him. Nobody.

Bob Serven, who had built the Mustangs’ basketball program to a

position of respectability, walked away.

Less than a week after it was announced that a fellow named Bob

Liskey was the replacement, he left with the same mysterious

“illness” that has fallen upon recent appointees in baseball,

basketball and football at cross-town rival Estancia High. They get

one look at what they’ve stepped into and suddenly are sick to their

stomach.

Hey! The Pilot sports staff didn’t even know Liskey was there

before it found out he had gone!

Doug Deats and Glenn Mitchell called it quits as baseball and

track and field coaches, and if they are replaced by new on-campus

coaches I will push a peanut down the centerline of 19th Street.

It was announced that Perkins resigned his post as athletic

director. In reality, he had been “fired,” right about the time his

school was hosting a summer camp (see adjacent story of Perkins’

dismissal).

Serven, Deats and Miller, off course, decided they had enough of

coaching because they needed to spend more time with their families.

Uh-huh. That was Serven’s first comment. Now he’s an assistant

coach at Mater Dei where the Monarchs will enjoy his coaching

presence. I asked Deats if he were offered the Corona del Mar High

baseball job he laughed. We agreed it was an unfair question.

The very nature of the district and it’s principals is to

intimidate the individual and keep the waters calm.

Any noise can, and does, result in sudden assignments to

siberia-like positions.

I went into a long song and dance about the intimidation factors

when Chris Sorce was submarined by a couple of malcontent “basketball

boosters” at Estancia, and the ensuing lack of support from the

principal despite the fact it was the principal who passed himself

off as one of Sorce’s best supporters in a three-year tour.

Guess who e-mailed me during the course of those comments?

None other than former Newport-Mesa School District trustee Wendy

Leece.

“Everything you have said in your columns about the district and

its intimidation policies is exactly correct,” said Leece.

She wrote it, I checked back with her to see if she had any qualms

about repeating her position in print and she never hesitated in

responding affirmatively. She’s one of the very few that I have found

who rejects all forms of intimidation.

Assistant principal Kirk Bauermeister, a former baseball coach and

athletic director at Mesa who I know for sure was shaking his head in

frustration as he left those posts, labeled the exodus as a

“coincidence.”

With all due respect, I don’t think that’s the answer.

What’s left at Costa Mesa?

The campus facilities remain in picked-apart condition, thanks to

the Costa Mesa City Council’s lack of control over a recreation

department which collects fees for various groups using the school’s

fields, then leaves the facilities in shambles at Costa Mesa High.

Mesa coaches, meanwhile, must find their own brooms and buckets to

clean up the mess while the school district and city count the take.

And, we’re some six weeks away from entering the new school year

with the lowest morale rating, surely, in the 45-year history of the

school. At this point the Mustangs’ athletics secretary must be No. 1

on the athletics staff in terms of current seniority.

I’d like to say, “cheer up, it can’t get any worse.”

But even if the principal were to realize another step on his

personal ladder and leave, the fact is, it will be the district’s job

to fill the vacancy. And given its track record, well, it’s obvious

they haven’t found too many to rival Bob Packer.

Bob Packer? Of 1973-81? They probably haven’t a clue to whom I

refer.

Hey! See you next Sunday! Surely there must be a way to put a stop

to this. Suggestions are welcomed.

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

His column appears on Sundays. He can be reached by e-mail at

[email protected].