Two coaching greats making comebacks
Fryer column: Checking in on a big change to Fountain Valley baseball, football notes, volleyball rankings and much more.
They have a combined total of more than 1,200 victories. They have 26 league championships between them, and five CIF championships.
Dave Demarest and Ron La Ruffa are teaming up to take over the Fountain Valley baseball team for the upcoming season.
Demarest confirmed Thursday that he will be an assistant coach and La Ruffa will return to Fountain Valley as head coach for the 2010 season.
La Ruffa coached Edison to four league championships and Fountain Valley to seven before resigning at Fountain Valley after the 2002 season. He compiled 500 victories and coached Fountain Valley to CIF titles in 1994 and ’95.
Demarest retired at La Quinta after the 2007 season, his 34th there, with a county-record 753 victories. He led the Aztecs to a county-record 15 consecutive league championships. They won three CIF championships during his tenure.
Joe McDonald, who has coached Fountain Valley the past four seasons, elected to take the 2010 season off. He did not return phone messages left for him Thursday.
The understanding here is that McDonald, a good man with his priorities in order, is leaving for important reasons, reasons that would make anyone create as much time as possible to attend to them.
“La Ruffa asked me if I would help out for a year, and I said I would,” said Demarest, who has spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Cypress College.
Demarest acknowledged recently that he had the itch to get back to being a high school baseball head coach.
“But that would have to be just the right situation at a small school,” he said. “But this is not a small-school situation.”
Demarest and La Ruffa are not mid-life crisis guys trying to recapture former glories. They are just helping a friend by taking care of his baseball program until he comes back.
Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:
• Updates of many of the county’s football games will be available on ocvarsity.com every Thursday and Friday night during the season.
• KDOC television will air “IBN High School Highlights” on Saturdays at 10 p.m. The show will have highlights from several top games of the week, interviews, commentary and features.
• CIF-Southern Section spokesman Thom Simmons confirmed that the section office approved the transfer of volleyball player Haleigh Hampton to Huntington Beach from Temescal Canyon of Elsinore. Hampton is a senior 6-foot-7 middle blocker who is a top prospect.
• In prepvolleyball.com’s national rankings of girls teams, Los Alamitos is No. 28 and Santa Margarita is No. 80. The nation’s No. 1 team: Sacred Heart of Louisville, Ky. Archbishop Mitty of San Jose is No. 2.
• Ocean View’s football program needs a team doctor. The doctor would have to be at five Ocean View home games, on the sidelines (a pretty good seat for a football game) beginning Sept. 11. Contact Ocean View athletic director Tim Walsh at 714-848-0656, ext. 4275 for details.
• Orange Lutheran football coach Jim Kunau gave an honest assessment of what happened in the Lancers’ 28-14 loss to Pickerington Central of Ohio this past Sunday at Ohio Stadium: “They just completely outplayed us. It wasn’t the travel or the surroundings or any of that. But it was a great trip, and everyone there involved with the game treated us great.”
• Gary Crippen confirmed he has been relieved of his duties as baseball coach at Santa Ana after 11 years in that capacity. He was a good, dedicated coach for the Saints who promoted the school’s program and players enthusiastically. Santa Ana won 176 games and made the playoffs six times during his tenure.
