Firing Triggers Resignation of 3 CLU Assistants

Three assistant football coaches at Cal Lutheran have resigned from their positions in the past four weeks after another assistant coach was fired early last month, a high-ranking school official said Thursday.

Don Reyes, an assistant coach at CLU for the past eight years, was fired early in June, triggering the other resignations, according to Bill Redell, an assistant to the school president. Redell gave no reason for the dismissal.

“When Don Reyes was terminated,” he said, “that had a lot to do with the others leaving.”

Redell’s comments differed from earlier statements made by football Coach Bob Shoup, who said all four coaches resigned because of low pay and long hours.

The three assistants who resigned after Reyes’ firing are defensive coordinator Jim Bauer, offensive coordinator Gene Uebelhardt and offensive line coach Pete Alamar. Bauer had coached at CLU for five years, Uebelhardt for nine and Alamar for two. Shoup said the resignations began June 17 when he received written notice from Bauer. He said the others “came in during the end of June and the first week of July.”

“When Donnie Reyes was relieved I decided it was time for me to move on. I have no idea why he was fired,” Bauer said. “You’d have to ask Bob Shoup. I guess Bob decided he no longer needed Donnie. It’s a culmination of a lot of things that I don’t want to go in to.”

Said Shoup, who insisted that all four coaches had resigned: “There were a lot of reasons. One was the philosophy of the university, which now is to go to fewer full-time assistant coaches, and another was the greater commitment and longer hours we expected. That was more than what the guys thought they could deliver.

“Alamar left, I think, because he was getting a better coaching opportunity.”

Alamar has taken an assistant coaching position at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He will coach the linebackers at the Western Football Conference school.

The four former CLU assistants were part-time coaches. Besides coaching at Cal Lutheran, Uebelhardt, Reyes and Bauer were full-time teachers and coaches at Royal High in Simi Valley. Shoup said the coaches’ teaching and coaching duties at Royal High “got in the way.”

“We were dealing with coaches who were tired of working part-time coaching jobs,” Shoup said. “We expected them to work a lot of hours. It was bad during the season and it got worse during the spring. I told them I couldn’t expect less from them here because they had duties elsewhere.”

Shoup added that during the spring “it was impossible for us to have a staff meeting because so many of our coaches were doing other things. And the inability of coaches to recruit was a problem.”

In addition to their teaching positions at Royal High, Uebelhardt and Bauer coach track and field at the school. Reyes is a wrestling coach there.

Cal Lutheran Athletic Director Robert Doering said the school is moving to eliminate part-time coaching positions in favor of a smaller, more manageable number of full-time jobs. “With the consolidating, we will have fewer numbers with more pay for each coach,” he said.

Since the departure of the four assistant coaches, CLU has hired one full-time coach, defensive coordinator Gary Patterson, formerly a linebacker coach at UC Davis, and one part-time coach, Bernie Kyman, who was athletic director and baseball coach at Chaminade High.

Shoup said that by the time the season begins, his staff will include three full-time assistants and two part-time coaches. Last year, the staff consisted of Shoup and eight part-time assistants.

“All of our assistants combined made $26,000 last year,” Shoup said. “And we expected each of them to work 1,000 hours. The feeling among the coaches was that as long as they continued to accept that work load, the university would continue using them.”