Coaching Changes Galore!

School is out and while I'm thinking about my top ten sports stories of the 2014-2015 school year one item that has to be mentioned is all the coaching changes. I don't remember this many coaches leaving, fired or resigning in one year.

Recently, we've had quite a few around Elk Grove Unified.

James Murdock, the baseball coach at Cosumnes Oaks, resigned recently. Whereas A.D. Bill Kapp hasn't announced a replacement, one guy who almost took it was former Sheldon coach John Misplay.

Misplay, though, decided he would rather get back into coaching after a four year layoff by taking over the baseball job at Bradshaw Christian. Drew Rickert, who has been the Pride's only baseball and football coach, decided he wants to just coach football and thus resigned after Bradshaw's third straight Division VI championship. They've also been in the D-6 championship series five straight years.

Misplay, a great player in his home state of Wyoming and later played at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, was a key assistant under Jeff Carlson at Elk Grove during the 2005 and 2006 Section championship runs.  He coached for four seasons at Sheldon, got the Huskies regularly into the playoffs, then stepped away for a while. The past couple seasons he returned to the dugout and coached the pitchers at Bradshaw.

He'll keep his teaching job at Sheldon next year and drive down the hill to coach at the neighboring Christian school.

We wrote a couple weeks back that Larry Price decided to leave Florin High School for greener pastures (meaning greater tradition) at Elk Grove. He's getting a potent girls' basketball squad next year and in the seasons to come.

Haven't heard who will take over for Price at Florin.

The new boys' basketball coach at EGHS is a familiar name, Dustin Monday. He took over on an interim basis for Rudy Ortega, Jr. three years ago, was the Delta Valley Conference's Coach of the Year. But, when a permanent replacement was hited Mat Bradley was chosen over Monday.

Rosemont hired Monday and he took a very ordinary club and made them competitive in the Metro League last season. But, when the EGHS job became vacant a couple months ago,  Monday was once again selected.

In the athletic director's offices around EGUSD, Bob Levin is stepping down at EGHS and Seth Boyle, the school's lead teacher and former soccer coach, will take over.

As I reported earlier this week, Laguna Creek's baseball coaching job is still up in the air. It's Mark Nill's if he still wants it. He took over for Josh Lex on an interim basis in February.

Monterey Trail hired Robert Fields to replace Ken Manfredi as its basketball coach. Manfredi left "Team Trail" to take over for Jesse Formaker at Franklin.

Fields is from Sacramento but the past few years has been teaching at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego. He's a 2005 graduate of Dominican University.

"Coach Fields is excited and focused on continuing the great tradition and overall program success here at Monterey Trail High School," Mustangs' athletic director David Coronado said.