I played for Ron Myers, who is now at Monte Vista Christian in San Jose California, at Brethren HS when the school was in Paramount. Our offense was a ball control I back system. Our passing game was patterned after Don Coryell’s San Diego Chargers. It was a classic pro set, west coast style offense.
In 1985 Mike Fitch, (Now at Mayfair HS) who was also my line coach, took over the program at Brethren. I was just finishing playing at LBCC under Wayne Howard/Will Shaw where we ran an I back option style offense. Mike Fitch gave me my start coaching as a jv line coach. The next year I was brought to coach the Varsity line and Mike Fitch installed a new single back offense. Our QB that year, Derek Stott, (UNLV), threw for over 1,700 yards and 27 Td’s still a school record.
Our OC Steve Beasley, who now coaches at LA Southwest JC used the same system we had under Myers but added a 3rd WR to the mix. The next year we left Brethren and went to Whittier HS where I was promoted to DC. I learned a lot of the passing game that year by defending it. The next year Steve left and I switched to OC. We ran a I back option offense with a 3 step short passing game. The next year I became HC of the JV program where we ran I back offense.
In 1990 I returned to Brethren ( the school moved to Cypress and added Christian to the name) under Mike Roark. Mike had come from West Hills HS in San Diego and had coached under Steve Sutton there. While at WHHS mike met Bill William’s where he learned the Run N Shoot. I became OC and Mike had me install the Run N Shoot. I had no idea on how to run this offense as I had never seen it before. Another problem we had was our QB loved to throw deep overlooking the short routes. Mike told me we could run nothing deep in spring ball, so we worked on our short game. This fit well with my experience, as that was all I had ever ran before. At BCHS we get very slow but sure handed WR’S. So we rely on execution and positioning then on speed and moves to get open.
At the same time we were installing this offense, right down the street from us Los Alamitos HS was doing the same thing. They had gotten their information from Hart HS, who they played in the playoffs the year before. My friends Robert Trice and Donny Dubry (WR/TE with JT Snow) were coaching there at the time. We talked and hashed out much of the offense those years from 90-92.
In our 1st year 1990, QB Brandon Stott (Cal Poly SLO) threw for 1,800 yards and 23 TD’S, breaking his brothers Yardage record. In 1991 Dan Cerio threw for 1800 yards. In 1992 we had a big line Darryl Jones (Wash St./SDSU), a great WR Scott Thomas (Azuza Pacific), a great FB Keith Washington (Cal Poly SLO) and an athlete at QB Reggie Davis (Washington). This is where the offense took the multi formation/ multi offense look. It still was a ball control offense ran out of a run n shoot formation.
In 1992 Mike Roark left BCHS to coach in Virginia and Ken Sharrar took over as HC. Ken had coached at Long Beach State under Mike Shepherd and at USC under Ted Tollner. Ken’s brother in law is Mike Sanford (USC/Notre Dame). Under Ken I learned the "West Coast Offense". We had more success with our QB’s as Ryan Bacock (Cal Lutheran) threw for 1500 yards. In 1994 I took over as OC and put a new wrinkle to the offense. We had a huge TE (6’6’’) Kevin Cooper (Washington). I ran the Ball Control Run N Shoot as I now called it with a TE.
After the year Ken left to coach at Westchester College and I became Head Coach. I had a big, strong QB David Priestly (Ohio State) and we threw the ball well with David throwing for over 2,000 yards. As I write this article we are approaching the summer of 1997. I have a rookie QB who has never played football before. I had to teach him everything from scratch. This prompted me to write the offense down and put it here.
BCHS Players in college
87 QB Derek Stott - UNLV
90 QB Brandon Stott - Cal Poly SLO
90 RB Frank Brady -San Diego State
90 WR David Kogler - Whittier College
92 WR Scott Thomas - Azuza Pacific
93 OT Darryl Jones - Washington State/SDSU
93 RB Keith Washington - Cal Poly SLO
93 QB Reggie Davis - Washington
94 QB Ryan Babcock - Cal Lutheran
95 TE Kevin Cooper - Washington
96 QB David Priestly - Ohio State