LJ FB: Timeline since 1924

By Ed Piper

La Jolla High first fielded a football team in 1924. (The school opened in 1922). The following is a timeline of the antecedents of the present 2019 Eastern League champions.

          Head Coach               Years           No. of Seasons
  1. Clarence Johnson      1924-1926               3 
  2. George Dotson          1927-1928               2
  3. Clair Seely                1929-1931               3
  4. Lawrence Carr          1932-1935               4
  5. Percy Allen                    1936                   1
  6. Marvin Clark            1937-1940               4
  7. Charlie McEuen       1941-1942               2
  8. Larry Hanson           1943-1946               4
  9. Charlie McEuen       1947-1949               3   (5 total, with earlier stint)
10. Walt Harvey             1950-1952               3
11. Frank Smith             1953-1955               3
12. Shan Deniston              1956                    1
13. Harry West               1957-1960               4   (became coach at City College)
14. Gene Edwards          1961-1989              29
15. Dick Huddleston      1990-1997               8
16. Dave Ponsford         1998-2008              11
17. Rey Hernandez        2009-2012               4
18. Jason Carter             2013-2015               3
19. Matt Morrison              2016                   1
20. Tyler Roach             2017-2019               3

Source: partletonsports.com

I asked Rick Eveleth, LJHS alumnus and former Athletic Director/coach, his theory on why no coach until Gene Edwards in 1961 served as head football coach for more than four years (except for Charlie McEuen, who had two stints). Rick's response was that many of the coaches were also administrators or had some other role, and they juggled coaching with those responsibilities; also. World War II came in (1941-1945), affecting coaching during those years.

I told him that my high school, Camarillo, which opened in 1957, had relatively long-term coaches in football, including Jack Lercari, Carl Thompson, and Ken Wilhite. (I was a student there from 1967-1971.) Each head coach, I believe, without checking the records, served more than four years; in Lercari's case, over a decade. What was the difference?

Rick said that in earlier days, the principal had some ability to choose the football coach. Sometimes, however, the principal has only been able to hire a classroom teacher in a particular subject--he (or she) hasn't had the power to hire a person specifically to coach. Eveleth said that when he began teaching (about 1971), P.E. teachers all coached at least two teams. There were no walk-on (non-staff) coaches. There was no teachers union at that time. After a teachers union was established, the written/unwritten rules changed, and P.E. teachers no longer had to coach after-school sports teams. That opened the way for walk-on coaches, now a common practice.