Mater Dei’s new football coach, Raul Lara, already has one advantage over his predecessor.
Which is, Lara is not the immediate replacement for Bruce Rollinson.
As massive as that challenge was for Frank McManus, who was fired last month after one season as head coach, following the very popular and successful Rollinson was not McManus’ largest problem.
McManus did not conform to what Mater Dei requested of him. The Monarchs’ winning in the 2023 season, including CIF Southern Section and CIF State championships, was enjoyed at Mater Dei, but McManus could be too much of a loose cannon for many at the school.
So there is some space between the departure of Rollinson and the hiring of Lara. If Mater Dei has any struggles in the 2024 season, the very-involved boosters and alums won’t be as critical of Lara as they might have been had Lara been hired before the ‘23 season.
Lara, 58, coached Long Beach Poly to 142 wins and five CIF Southern Section top-division championships in 13 seasons. His teams lost only two Moore League games during his tenure. Lara’s final game as Poly’s coach was a loss to Mater Dei in the CIF-SS semifinals in 2013.
He later would be head coach at Warren and then at St. Anthony of Long Beach. St. Anthony’s president when Lara was hired there was Mike Brennan, who is now in his third school year as the president at Mater Dei.
Mater Dei has a principal, Frances Clare, whose graceful and steady leadership has been essential to the school’s success, and a president. A president is far more involved than a principal is in athletics at the larger high schools.
Lara last year applied for the Mater Dei head coaching job before it went to McManus, who had 16 years of experience as an assistant coach for the Monarchs. It can matter a great deal at Mater Dei that a job candidate has a Mater Dei background, just as being a Servite man can mean a lot at Servite. “Mater Dei Family” and “Servite Brotherhood” are very real.
Those family ties and McManus’ football smarts and popularity with the school’s football players gave him an advantage in the competition to replace Rollinson in 2023. But don’t think that this time Brennan got his way when Lara won the head coaching position at Mater Dei.
Brennan was enthusiastic about the hiring of McManus. And Brennan was sad that McManus could not deliver all of what Mater Dei wanted from its football head coach, which included working well with other school departments and alumni and instilling a win-with-class style.
While Brennan was supportive of Lara’s candidacy during both hiring phases, and Brennan’s experience with Lara at St. Anthony did aid Lara’s candidacy, the hiring of McManus and Lara had to be approved by many at Mater Dei and at the Diocese of Orange.
Lara was not as appreciated as he should have been at Long Beach Poly, where parents and alums thought the always-talented roster should have won CIF championships every year. They, like plenty of other high school parents, forgot that these are teen-aged kids. Getting the kids to maintain a high, mistake-free level of performance over a full season, or even within a single game, is a magic trick that doesn’t always work.
Why Lara at Mater Dei this time?
Mater Dei wants to keep winning football championships but wants to do so without the environment that last season included teammates fighting each other on the sidelines and players’ moms fighting each other in the stands. Lara knows how to run a championship football program and his work as a deputy probation officer in Los Angeles County brings a disciplinarian approach to dealing with young people.
Lara followed a great coach, and a popular one, too, at Long Beach Poly. His predecessor was Jerry Jaso, was the head coach or co-head coach for four CIF-SS championships at Poly. Jaso left a very large shadow at Poly when Lara replaced him.
Rollinson’s large shadow still exists at Mater Dei and always will. But it’s not as large as it was in 2023.
NOTES
• Richard Shearer, CIF-SS assistant commissioner in charge of baseball, followed the rules that CIF-SS member schools created when Servite was omitted from the Division 2 baseball playoffs. Servite was a candidate for one of the three at-large berths in the 32-team Division 2 bracket. Servite was the Trinity League’s No. 5 team, and CIF-SS by-laws require that leagues’ No. 4 teams have priority over No. 5 teams when it comes awarding at-large berths. That was a tough deal for Servite because in the Orange County Top 25 only one county team in Division 2, Aliso Niguel at No. 6, was higher in those rankings than No. 7 Servite, which swept defending Division 1 champion JSerra in three games in the final week of the regular season. …
• The final round of pool play Saturday in the CIF-SS boys volleyball Division 1 playoffs will identify which teams play in the championship match on May 11 at Cerritos College. The winner of the Corona del Mar at Mira Costa match will emerge from Pool B as a finalist. If Loyola beats Newport Harbor in Pool A on Saturday then Loyola goes to the final. But if Newport Harbor wins Saturday and Huntington Beach defeats Mater Dei, that would leave Loyola, Huntington Beach and Newport Harbor with 2-1 records in pool play. The tiebreaker would be which team has the highest percentage of set wins in pool play. …
• In the baseball and softball playoffs, when two teams meet after the first round the team with the fewest number of home games in the playoffs at that point is the home team. If the two teams have played the same number of playoff home games, a coin flip decides the home team. Coin flips for potential matchups in the next round are made in advance, with the results available at CIFSS.org. …
• Girls flag football will have CIF-SS championships this fall. …
• Marina senior Quinn Hartman has been chosen as a CIF Scholar-Athlete of the Year, a statewide award, for the 2023-24 school year. Hartman is a team captain for Marina’s cross country, soccer and baseball teams. He also carries a 5.2 grade-point average and is a leader of several school organizations. He will attend Caltech this fall. …
• The CIFSS.org website has an extensive history section that has been developed by John Dahlem, who could be the most interesting man one would meet. Dahlem was a wrestling coach and principal at Loara, earned a bronze star for valor while serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, was president of the CIF-SS Council and is one of only nine Americans to complete The Explorers Grand Slam, which is ascending the highest peak on every continent and reaching the north and south poles. The CIF-SS office recently announced that its digital library has been named The Dr. John S. Dahlem Digital Library.
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