Santa Monica’s Kusserow Will Quit Coaching

Tebb Kusserow, who won more games than any other football coach at Santa Monica High, has resigned after 17 seasons with a career record of 122-49-5.

Kusserow, 47, whose teams won eight league championships and a CIF-Southern Section title in 1981, said that there are many reasons for his resignation. One reason, he said, is that his father-in-law, Oreste Cha, has cancer, making it difficult to concentrate on coaching. He said that he also feels it is time for a change.

“Seventeen years is a long time to be in a particular position in one place,” he said. “It’s a good time now for someone to take over the leadership of the Santa Monica High School football program, to take it into the decade of the 1990s. To wait a year would be to put that person at a disadvantage.”

Kusserow, a 1961 graduate of Santa Monica High, said that he would remain at the school as a physical education teacher.