Ponce quits under pressure as Santa Rosa High football coach

<p>Under administrative pressure, Russell Ponce resigned at 3:30 p.m. Monday as head football coach of Santa Rosa High School.</p><p>The resignation came on the heels of a meeting at the school, called by Santa Rosa principal James Goddard. In attendance were vice principal Alan Neelly, athletic directors Gary Dellepere and Jake Fitzpatrick, Goddard and Ponce. Goddard had alerted Ponce before Christmas that a meeting would take place after the holidays.</p><p>While Ponce, 35, was not fired at the meeting, he came away impressed that school administrators were not pleased with his direction of the football program.</p><p>“I told Russell, ‘I like you. The kids like you. The fans, most of them, like you,’” Goddard said. “‘But that’s not the major issue. Is the program stable? Is the program headed in the right direction?’”</p><p>Goddard and his staff were convinced it was not, a sentiment Ponce began to acknowledge Friday and then fully accepted by Monday. Goddard and Ponce agreed no single incident formed the basis of their displeasure and his resignation. It was more of an accumulation of things, the unsettled feeling of controlled chaos being one of them.</p><p>“You know how if you show up to work five minutes early, the day goes smoothly?” Ponce said. “But if you show up five minutes later, you seem to play catch-up all day long? Many of the administrative duties were completed haphazard, done on the fly. They were done, but done on the fly. I really wasn’t on top of things the way I should have been.”</p><p>Isiah Rucker and Therman McGowan, the team’s two best running backs, missed most of the season because of academic ineligibility.</p><p>“One of the things I was disappointed in was the coach’s interaction with Rucker and McGowan,” Goddard said. “I really don’t think he had as much interaction with them as he should have had. I think he (Ponce) feels bad for Therman, and rightfully so.”</p><p>On that issue, Ponce said, “I don’t think it helped (his situation)” that his two best players had significant academic issues.</p><p>Within a week to 10 days, Goddard will post an opening for a head football coach on the school’s Web site as well as edjoin.org (a job Web site for educators) and other Internet sites. Any prospective candidate would do well to understand the principal’s concept of a head football coach.</p><p>“It’s attention to details,” Goddard said. “To be successful, it’s not standing there and delivering (game strategy). Russell knows his Xs and Os. Eighty percent of coaching is paying attention to detail, being prepared, having a plan, being structured. Standing and delivering is Friday night. It’s what goes on behind the scenes that matters, all the nit-picky little things that coaches need to do. Russell wasn’t prepared for that. He dropped the ball. And in his heart of hearts, he knows he dropped the ball. The program was lacking.”</p><p>Ponce, who finished his three years at Santa Rosa with a 13-18 record, said he wasn’t ready to quit.</p><p>“I wanted to stay one more year to get the bad taste out of my mouth from last season,” Ponce said. “When I came to Santa Rosa, I had a 10-year plan to build the best program in the league. But lately I realized it was not a realistic goal. I always wanted to dominate. But I didn’t meet my expectations and that really bothered me.”</p><p>Both Goddard and Ponce, a freight delivery truck driver, admitted that being an off-campus head coach put him at a disadvantage. Having access to his players only during practice limited his interaction and, consequently, his effect on and knowledge of them. Add to that, Goddard said, Ponce didn’t conduct a year-round weight training program or hold summer camps for his players.</p><p>“If you don’t win, they are going to come after you,” Ponce said.</p><p>Goddard said he has no problem with a football team going 3-7 as long as a coach maximizes the players’ ability. Goddard felt Ponce didn’t do that.</p><p>“But I can see Russell moving up to be an assistant coach at a junior college or even at a (four-year) college,” Goddard said.</p><p>For Ponce, he’s not sure what he’s going to do next.</p><p>“But I do feel relief,” he said.</p><p>For more on North Bay high school sports, go to Bob Padecky’s blog at padecky@pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.</p>