DeShane Starts on Desert Floor

Ray DeShane has been moving in and out of the high desert far too long to be branded the new kid on the block.

He is the quintessential vagabond football coach: a couple years here, a few there. You need a road map to follow his resume. Coaching jobs from Dinuba to Pomona and a dozen in between.

DeShane, 48, is as familiar to high school football coaches in the Antelope Valley as a tumbleweed. Coaches know he’s around, they just don’t know where he’ll turn up next.

He has had coaching stints at Antelope Valley College, Paraclete and Palmdale. He left the high desert for gigs at Pierce College, La Verne Bonita, Bakersfield Garces and Azusa. He knows a lot of coaches and vice versa.

But his nomad days are behind him, he said. After 25 years of looking for his “dream job,” DeShane has found it--surrounded by sagebrush, two miles from a state prison in Lancaster.

This season Golden League coaches will welcome their old friend in a new capacity as varsity football coach at Lancaster High, which opened with a freshman class in 1995 and will begin its inaugural varsity football season this year without seniors.

“One of the nice things about this valley is that it’s a close-knit group of coaches,” DeShane said. “We get along--we hate each other on Friday night when we play--but when we’re done, it’s a friendly deal.”

DeShane, who grew up in Bakersfield and was once a 5-foot-10 starting offensive guard for Nevada Las Vegas, has been in search of this job for decades.

“It was a dream of mine to start a new school,” DeShane said. “But, I tell ya, I never had any idea the headaches you have.”

No equipment. No weights. No team colors. No mascot. No football field. This was ground zero.

DeShane, whose first coaching job in the Antelope Valley was as an assistant at Paraclete High in 1974, is not the first coach to experience the joy and growing pains of opening a school.

Littlerock’s Jim Bauer and Highland’s Lin Parker started their football programs with freshman classes when the schools opened simultaneously in 1989.

“You get the opportunity to do a lot of positive things, but it’s a lot of work,” Bauer said. “There are a ton of headaches that go along with starting a program. It requires a lot of flexibility and a lot of creativity on your part.”

So far, DeShane has proved up to the challenge. With a $12,000 budget to fill a spacious 3,000 square-foot weightroom, DeShane finessed a deal that netted Lancaster about $32,000 worth of equipment, most of it used.

Bleachers at the campus stadium were just installed at Lancaster. Fans will no longer have to sit in lawn chairs and “yell at the players to sit down because they can’t see,” DeShane said.

A scoreboard is expected to be installed this season and DeShane is hoping the city of Lancaster will donate the money for lights sometime in the next year.

“When you have nothing, you have to beg, borrow and steal to get money to get it going,” he said.

While DeShane may be short on funds for the new program, he isn’t short on personnel. Each year the school enrolls more students than it expects.

“When a new school opens up, it’s like a new car,” DeShane said. “Everybody [says], ‘Let’s go try that.’ ”

In 1995, officials expected 500 students and the school took in 800. They expected 400 new students the next year and 800 more enrolled. This year, officials are expecting an additional 500.

The first year, Lancaster suited up 130 freshmen. Last year, with 53 players on the junior varsity, Lancaster went 10-0. This year’s varsity will have about 46--and all but four are juniors.

“If we get another 800 [students] this year, we’re going to be maxed out here in three years,” DeShane said.

The $37-million facility, equipped with a computer in every room and office, was built to facilitate 2,200 students. Lancaster was near 2,100 on Friday--without seniors.

With the state-mandated open-enrollment policy in its fourth year, students in the Antelope Valley Unified School District can attend any school of their choice.

The choice is simple, according to Antelope Valley Coach Brent Newcomb, whose school is about four miles from Lancaster High.

“Everybody wants to smell the new paint and run on the new grass,” Newcomb said.

While Antelope Valley’s enrollment continues to dwindle and its facilities sag, Lancaster’s is flourishing.

In three years, Lancaster has surpassed Antelope Valley’s enrollment, which has dipped below 2,000 at the four-year school.

“We’ve had a real small freshmen class the last three years and we might just feel the crunch this year,” said Newcomb, who has won three Southern Section titles in 19 years at Antelope Valley.

Said DeShane: “Brent keeps accusing me of stealing kids, but I swear I haven’t. We probably have five or six kids who would be stars for him.”

DeShane doesn’t have to recruit players. Parents do it for him, he said.

DeShane said he has several players who live outside the school’s boundaries. He believes kids are going out of their way to attend Lancaster in part because the school requires its students to wear uniform-type clothing.

“The parents want the uniform, they want the discipline [Lancaster offers],” he said.

Lancaster is a fully alarmed, self-contained facility. If somebody leaves or enters campus when they aren’t supposed to, somebody is bound to hear about it.

“I can’t even get into this place unless I get the security guard to let me in,” DeShane said. “I set [the alarm] off last year five times because I had to get in here.”

DeShane has settled into a wait-and-see mode for this season. The Eagles join the Golden League in a year which promises to be one of great parity among Antelope Valley, Highland, Littlerock, Palmdale and Quartz Hill.

“I don’t see a doormat--unless it’s us,” he said. “They’re all outstanding.”

To gear up for the hefty league competition, DeShane has secured a beefy schedule. After games with Victor Valley and Sultana--two schools larger than Lancaster--the Eagles will play Crespi.

“We may take it this year, but when the kids are seniors, they’re gonna know we played some good teams and they’ll be ready,” DeShane said.

Silverado and Redlands East Valley, a new school, will provide Lancaster with its best shot at victory.

“You try to schedule some you should win, some you can win and some you hope you can win,” said DeShane, whose goal is to finish .500 this season.

For all the headaches DeShane has endured in getting his program up and running, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s something you can always say, that you were the first coach here and I’ll always be in the history books [as the first].”