Poway head coach Jay Trousdale was presented with a ball and a banner by his team and assistant coaches on the occasion of his 700th win. Photo: Twitter.com.
Poway girls basketball coach Jay Trousdale has become just the sixth coach to reach 700 career wins. When that happened depends on whether forfeit wins are counted, but it’s definitely happened since his team this year has started 6-0 and he only needed three wins this season (with forfeits not counted) for the magic number.
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There was a celebration on March 27 after the Poway High girls basketball team defeated Canyon Crest Academy of San Diego, 67-25, for its second win of the 2021 spring season. The school, local media and CIF San Diego Section had it as the 700th win in the coaching career of head coach Jay Trousdale, who started coaching the Titans in 1988.
It just took an extra win for Trousdale to be credited with 700 wins for the Cal-Hi Sports state records due to a forfeit win that Poway had from the 2019-20 season. Forfeits have never counted in the Cal-Hi Sports state records (which also are the only state records in girls basketball that exist). No worries. Trousdale just reached 700 for that list in the next game as the Titans downed Torrey Pines of San Diego, 58-53, on April 2.
Trousdale already was the winningest coach in San Diego history before this season. He didn’t move up on the all-time state list in reaching 700, but his girls have won three more times since then and he has now tied Brian Harrigan (most recently at St. Francis of Mountain View) for fifth on that list.
The only other coaches higher than Trousdale would be overall leader Kevin Kiernan (currently at Mater Dei of Santa Ana), Melissa Hearlihy (Harvard-Westlake of Studio City), Joe Vaughan (retired from Buena of Ventura) and Sue Phillips (Archbishop Mitty of San Jose).
“Joining the California 700 club is such an honor,” Trousdale said in an email interview over the weekend. “It really is hard to believe in a way. The only coach who I know of the five other coaches is Joe Vaughn. I had the honor of coaching against Joe in two state playoff games in 1992 and 1995. California has had a lot of great girls basketball coaches over the years who I have the utmost respect for.”
Vaughn, who had 761 wins at Buena from 1976 to 2007, also is similar to Trousdale in that both men coached at just one public school for the duration of a long career.
“Beating Buena in the 1992 state playoffs was a thrill,” Trousdale said. “The best game I think that I have ever coached in was a (CIF San Diego Section) semifinal overtime victory in 2008 vs Escondido. The gym was packed. Escondido was an outstanding team and I know there was a San Diego Charger football player in the audience that said afterwards it was one of the best sporting events he had ever seen.”
Four of Trousdale’s teams over the years have won CIF San Diego Section titles, which came in 1991, 1992, 1995 and 2008. His Poway teams also have won 12 league titles and he’s almost always had contending teams with an average of 21 wins over his 34 seasons.
It’s not like Trousdale is exactly done with coaching, either. The 66-year-old who retired from teaching in 2017 has been extremely impressed with this year’s team, which will put its 6-0 record on the line on Friday vs. 4-2 Mt. Carmel of San Diego.
“It has definitely been the most challenging season ever,” he said. “We have seven players playing other sports at the same time and we have shorter than normal practices. It’s usually only an hour and a half with other sports using the gym, too. We will have a super challenging league so the toughest games are yet to come.”
