Two of those featured in this year’s coaching milestones roundup for baseball and softball are Valley Christian (San Jose) baseball coach John Diatte and Norco softball coach Rick Robinson. Photos: Mark Tennis & ExtraInningSoftball.com.
There were only a handful of games in many instances due to the Coronavirus pandemic shutdown, but we have just updated the all-time state coaching wins lists for baseball and softball through the 2020 season. Despite the few games played, we still had a new baseball coach reach 700 wins, another with a 600th win and two more now showing at 500. For softball, one of the most well-known coaches in the nation won his 600th game while another is poised to join him.
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BASEBALL MILESTONES 2020
Vince Brown (Foothill, Tustin)
It was announced last week that Brown has resigned as the Knights head coach. He didn’t have 500 career wins, but has been one of the state’s top coaches for many years. The Orange County Register reported his current 24 years of head coaching had been the most in that county. Brown began being a head coach at nearby Tustin from 1986 to 1992 and was in that post at Foothill in two different time spans (1996-2003 and 2014-2020). His career record stands at 44-187 with 14 league championships. Brown indicated he was resigning to see two of his sons play next season — Dillon at Concordia University and Zachary, who will be a freshman at Villa Park High. Another son, Tommy, played football at Mater Dei and currently is at Alabama.
John Diatte (Valley Christian, San Jose)
It was only a 4-3 start for the three-time defending CIF Central Coast Section champions, but that was enough to make Diatte the winningest coach in the history of the West Catholic Athletic League. The WCAL can legitimately claim to be the best high school baseball league in the U.S. if you’re going by the history of the various league members (some of them which have traditions that go back 100 years or more). And we’d bet an all-time all-league team from the WCAL would beat any other league in America as well (other than perhaps California’s Moore League). It’s still the toughest league in Northern California and it’s a league in which several schools have coaches on the all-time state wins list. Diatte now stands a 652 after 2020 and is now in front of San Jose Archbishop Mitty’s Bill Hutton (648), Mountain View St. Francis’ Chris Bradford (644), San Jose Bellarmine’s Gary Cunningham (617) and San Mateo Serra’s Pete Jensen (564).
One of California’s top small school coaches in any sport is Winters’ Jeff Ingles. Photo: Tom Crisp/Winters HS.
Manny Hermosillo (Montgomery, San Diego)
Only needing one win to hit the magic number of 700 career wins, Hermosillo got it when the Aztecs posted an 8-1 win over San Diego High. His freshman grandson, Daniel Alcala, played in the game for Montgomery and Coach Hermosillo also mentioned to the San Diego Union-Tribune that he might stick around for awhile to continue to coach his grandson and others. He’s been the baseball coach for the Aztecs since 1984. Manny became just the 12th coach in state history to win 700 games and just the second from the CIF San Diego Section.
Jeff Ingles (Winters)
The coach of the team that has finished No. 1 for the last two seasons in our D4 final state rankings picked up the 600th win of his prep career when the Warriors posted a win against Pioneer of Woodland. Ingles, who has the most wins for a baseball coach in CIF Northern Section history, has been coaching at Winters for 32 years. He became the 35th reported coach in California history to get a 600th win.
Bob Parry (Poway)
This is a weird one. The Poway high community celebrated Parry with a 500th win last spring and it also was featured on a local TV station. The San Diego Union-Tribune, however, showed him with 499 wins when the season ended. Since we tend to go with the local paper as the local record keeper, Parry needed one more win to start 2020 for there to be no doubt about 500 and that happened on March 9 in a 7-0 triumph over La Costa Canyon of Carlsbad.
Scott Pearson (Warren, Downey)
While the 500-win total is the one that gets someone onto the all-time wins list for baseball, it takes 200 for football and Scott’s twin brother, Kevin, is on that list and he’s now coaching football at Warren High as well. Scott’s team beat Roosevelt of Los Angeles 3-2 for his 500th win. That was also the school in which Pearson began his baseball coaching career in 2000. He’s been the head coach at Warren for eight years and also was a coach at Cathedral of Los Angeles when Kevin was coaching there at the same time.
SOFTBALL MILESTONES 2020
Mike Noel (Clovis) &
Judy Shaubach (Madera)
These two CIF Central Section coaching legends are now showing as two of the top 10 on the all-time state list. Shaubach’s girls had gotten out to a 12-0 start and were looking forward to battling it out with Bullard of Fresno for the County/Metro League title. Noel’s team was ranked even higher based on strength of schedule and was 9-1 when the season ended. Shaubach is now No. 9 and Noel No. 10 on the all-time state list. They also were back-to-back State Coach of the Year honorees – Shaubach in 2016 and Noel in 2017.
Rick Robinson (Norco)
Becoming the 17th head coach in state history to reach 600 wins, which Robinson did when the Cougars won their ninth game of the 2020 season, is one thing, but knowing him it’ll be a lot more special when he can win two more and get to 604. That’s because currently sitting at 603 and right in front of him on the all-time state list is JoAnn Byrd of Corona, one of Norco’s district rivals. She was the head coach of the Panthers from 1986 to 2013 and that’s also where Robinson started his own career as an an assistant coach. Robinson’s 2020 team had dropped a game at the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions (an event won by Los Alamitos), but it was definitely strong enough to win another CIF Southern Section Division I title. His team won its sixth CIFSS title last season and was No. 1 in the state at 32-1. Rick was our 2012 State Coach of the Year when Norco also was No. 1 in the ESPN/FAB 50 national rankings.
If there are any other coaches with 500 or more wins in baseball and softball that we need to start to follow, email info to markjtennis@gmail.com.
Mark Tennis is the editor and publisher of Cal-Hi Sports. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
