Former St. Paul head coach Elijah Asante has joined Harry Welch’s staff at Santa Margarita as an assistant coach.

“Harry Welch offered me to come two years ago,” Asante said. “He told me if that if I ever had the opportunity, he wanted me to coach with him. And of course, this opportunity came up because I was out of a job. He offered for me to come in.

“It’s just such a great program, I went on and took advantage of it.”

Asante was let go by St. Paul in the middle of last season, his first at the school. He closed the season as an assistant coach at Lakewood. Asante previously had a successful run at Carson, where he beat Mater Dei twice, a fact that may prove useful at Santa Margarita.

Asante does not know for sure what his role on Welch’s staff will be. According to him, there are no titles on the Santa Margarita staff like there would be at a typical high school.

“He doesn’t give titles,” Asante said of Welch. “If you look at this program book, everybody is an assistant coach. It’s kind of a smart thing to do because he’s got like four head coaches on his staff.”

Asante remains a teacher at St. Paul, but is unsure if he’ll continue in that role next school year.

Aram’s take: Well, in the ever-growing recruiting/attracting wars taking place in The OC, this is a big coup for Santa Margarita. The way Mater Dei has been “attracting” talent recently, the stakes had gone up and Santa Margarita will need to keep up. And then there’s Servite and Mission Viejo. Yep, it’s a rat race for talent. Asante will certainly help in that department and don’t be surprised if Santa Margarita gets some high-impact kids in this spring/summer.