I wasn’t completely surprised that Ray Maholchic stepped down as Serrano football coach. He had been hinting that it was coming soon. After all, he was retiring soon from teaching and would have to retire as coach by then in order to collect his retirement. I’m a little surprised that it wasn’t announced until mid-February.

Ray Maholhic and the Serrano program are class as evidenced by his press release:

It can be jarring when a long-time coach leaves. Redlands is going through that with Jim Walker’s departure. It happened when Dick Bruich left Fontana, when John Monger left Chino and it will happen when Tim Salter leaves Upland. In many of those situations, the next coach doesn’t stay  too long. The coaching staff splinters and it’s up to a new coach to eventually start a new tradition.

I don’t think that will happen at Serrano, and here’s why: it’s not to take away from Maholchic’s greatness as a coach. In fact, it’s because of it. He is in a one-high school district and most of his assistant coaches are on campus. He expects some interest among those assistants. so it wouldn’t be surprising if most of the rest of the staff stays intact. Maholchic also said, coaching hires are made on-site, so they don’t need to go to school board approval. So he and the administration can pick his successor.

In addition, Maholchic isn’t going away. He’ll still be the school’s athletic director and is willing to be in the booth during games to help the new head coach. Some of the roles will change, but the winning shouldn’t change much.

In my original story on his resignation, I hadn’t reached Apple Valley coach Matt Rohrbaugh. The coaching staffs at the two schools are very close. So here are Rohrbaugh’s comments on why they are close. “I think we have very similar philosophies and hard-nosed football,” he said. “It’s about holding kids to a standard and I respect how they do things.”

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