Boys basketball: Cook resignation forces Estancia to scramble

Barry Faulkner

COSTA MESA - Rick Cook, hired as Estancia High boys basketball

coach June 26, has resigned after coaching one summer league game.

Cook’s departure, after one practice and a reported 60-point loss to

Newport Harbor in the summer league opener Tuesday night, leaves the

Eagles without a coach and some players and boosters with sinking morale.

Estancia Boys Athletic Director Tim Parsel, out of town for the July 4

holiday and unavailable for comment, has asked Eagles sophomore coach

Chris Sorce to coach the varsity team through the summer, or until a

replacement can be found, Sorce said.

Sorce, however, would prefer to remain with the sophomore team next

season.

The search for a varsity coach is complicated by the lack of a full-time

teaching position at Estancia, meaning the prospective coach would have

to be a walk-on.

Cook, reportedly a candidate for the coaching vacancy at perennial

powerhouse Artesia High, met with the players for the first time June 26

and expressed enthusiasm about his assignment that night in a Daily Pilot

interview.

Cook, however, was apparently disillusioned when only five players,

including one not expected to make the varsity, showed up for the Newport

Harbor game.

“We beat them by about 60,” said Harbor Coach Larry Hirst, who had only

eight available bodies himself, making it difficult to lessen the victory

margin by benching his starters.

Hirst said Cook, as well as John Mounce, a veteran Harbor assistant whom

Cook had planned to take with him to Estancia, had not spoken to him

about returning to Newport as of Monday afternoon.

Cook could not be reached for comment.

The abrupt departure continues a recent trend at Estancia, which has now

seen coaches in football, basketball and baseball quit varsity jobs

before coaching a regular-season game within the last three years.

Another baseball coach, Joe McKettrick, stepped aside just one game into

the 1998 campaign.

“This is what happened two years ago with the football coach (Roy

Scaffidi backed out just before spring practice),” said Louis Valdes,

whose sons play football and basketball at the school. “This is just like

that mayhem all over again. The kids were excited about getting a coach

with some good credentials, but then you turn around and he’s gone.”

Cook, a head coach for 14 seasons at Workman High in the City of

Industry, before working as an assistant at Newport Harbor last season,

also had head coaching experience in his native West Virginia. He planned

to continue teaching at Workman and commute to Estancia to coach.

Estancia basketball player Fahad Jahid, who will be a senior, said he did

not know when the next practice was scheduled.

Jahid also said he was not overly concerned with the situation.

“It’s still early, so we still have time to find a good coach,” said

Jahid, who was away at the football team’s full-contact summer camp last

week. “(Cook) seemed like a cool guy and he seemed real ambitious. It

reminds me of what happened with Scaffidi, who was in and out of there so

fast, you don’t know what to say.”