In the beginning, there was Brady Lock.
He was St. Margaret’s first football coach. Lock started the program in 1985. The Tartans played 8-man football.
Today, St. Margaret’s is one of Orange County’s more consistent winners in 11-man football. The Tartans will attempt to become the first county team to win two state championships when they play Central Catholic of Modesto on Friday in the CIF State Championship Division IV game at 4 p.m. at StubHub Center in Carson.
Two years after the football program started, St. Margaret’s played in a CIF championship game. The Tartans were a CIF-Southern Section 8-man runner-up in 1987. St. Margaret’s became the first county school to win a CIF-SS 8-man title, in ’89, although the Tartans almost did not have a team.
“We always struggled with numbers,” said Lock, meaning the number of kids on the team. “In 1989 we had only seven guys come out. I was thinking, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we need at least eight.’ ”
He managed a vigorous expansion of the roster to 18 players.
Lock and St. Margaret’s became increasingly ambitious about football. St. Margaret’s, an Episcopalian private school in San Juan Capistrano, felt that 8-man football was not bringing its football players and the program deserved recognition.
The school knew it had to wait until it was ready for the 11-man game.
“We didn’t want to switch until we thought we could compete,” Lock said. “If we went to 11-man and couldn’t compete, that would have taken away everything we’d accomplished.
“We didn’t take the move lightly.”
Lock credited school administrators for supporting the switch to 11-man, which happened in 1995. He especially praises St. Margaret’s athletic director Susie Maga for pushing for success not just in football but for all of the school’s sports programs.
The school, including the girls volleyball program coached by Maga, has won league and CIF titles in a variety of sports.
“You look at St. Margaret’s athletics and it’s pretty solid across the board,” Lock said. “Give her a lot of credit for that.”
St. Margaret’s success continued to grow after Lock departed to coach at Mission Prep in San Luis Obispo. He left St. Margaret’s after the 2005 season, with a 119-87-2 record.
The Tartans won the CIF-SS Northeast championship in 2006 when Jason Hitchens coached them. Harry Welch took over in 2007 and led St. Margaret’s to section and state championships in 2008 and another section title in ’09. Welch retired for a second (or was it third?) time before becoming coach at Santa Margarita, so Rod Baltau replaced Welch at St. Margaret’s and the Tartans were a CIF-SS runnerup in the East Valley Division last year.
The program has set, or come close to setting, a number of Orange County football records.
The Tartans set the county record for single-season points scored (674) in 2007. They broke that record with 742 in ’08. Their 44-game winning streak, 2006-09, is the longest in county history and their eight shutouts in ’08 is second to the county-record of nine shutouts established by Villa Park in 1981.
Lock in 2008 assumed the head coaching job at Mission Prep and was 19-8 there before resigning early in the 2010 season because he felt the players and he were not connecting.
Lock, 60, works part-time at a junior high in Santa Maria and helps coach the boys volleyball program at Nipomo High. He also is an assistant track and field coach, working with pole vaulters, at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria.
Lock is not surprised by St. Margaret’s continued success in football.
“The school’s always wanted all of its programs to excel,” he said. “Academics, the arts, everything. Athletics certainly has been a big part of that.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
