Warrior Head Coach Steve Denman. After 301 career wins, was this his final year of coaching?
Posted by John Nelson, The Tehachapi News. Photo by The Tehachapi News.
Posted on November 19, 2016 by John Nelson, The Tehachapi News Denman Yet To Decide His Own Football Future
Steve Denman has coached the Tehachapi Warriors football team for 35 years, and he says he hasn't decided if there will be a 36th year, yet.
Speculation on the sidelines and in the press box at Coy Burnett Field has been that if Denman got his 300th coach victory this season, he would retire. He got that historic victory in the Warriors' final regular-season game of 2016, and an opening-round playoff win was his 301st.
If he decides to retire, it's a decision he has not yet made and one that he won't make alone, Denman said Saturday, Nov. 19, two days after the Warriors' season ended.
"We'll see," he said. "We'll sit down as a staff and discuss things and see how everybody feels and go from there."
Denman's tight-knit coaching staff includes defensive coordinator Dennis Ruggles, who's been with Denman for 32 years; Bill Carll, who coached the Warriors when Denman was a player, and Pat Snyder, who played for Denman and is now the Warriors athletic director.
The staff will share in the decision-making process, Denman said.
"We'd want to try to keep the staff together," the coach said, "so it depends on everybody and how they all feel."
Denman admitted the job takes its toll.
"This is a time-consuming game," he said. "It takes a lot of time from your personal life, during the season and the off-season, and if you don't have that burning desire to be out there — I mean, it's like everybody goes through different stages of their lives, especially the four of us.
"So, we just have to sit down," he said.
Does he still have "that burning desire?"
"The most important thing to me, and what I enjoy most, is being out there with the kids, at practice, having fun with them," he said. "That's what I really enjoy."
