CdM to tab Hitchens as coach

Four months of upheaval with the Corona del Mar High football coaching vacancy appears to be over with as Jason Hitchens, a former successful head coach at St. Margaret’s and El Modena, is expected to be named the new coach, said Villa Park Coach Pat Mahoney, whom Hitchens served as a defensive coordinator for last year.

Paul Orris, CdM’s athletic director, would not comment Thursday on who was going to take over, saying the school is in the process of signing a contract with a candidate. Orris said an announcement to Dick Freeman’s predecessor could be made as early as this morning.

Hitchens will assume control of a program that Trabuco Hills offensive coordinator Chad Johnson pulled himself out of the running for last month because of the uncertainty of a teaching job at CdM. Orris said the campus now has a teaching opening and the candidate looking to turn around a 4-5 team that missed the playoffs for the first time since 2003 will be a teacher.

Hitchens, a history teacher, guided St. Margaret’s in 2006 to a 14-0 season, capping it with a CIF Southern Section Northeast Division championship. Before his one-year stint with the Tartans, Hitchens coached at El Modena from 1998 to 2003, winning three league titles, and earlier was an assistant at Mater Dei and Santa Margarita.

“It’s going to be a good situation for him at CdM,” said Mahoney, adding that Hitchens will bring two or three assistants with him from Villa Park, which went 1-9, 0-5 in the Century League last season. “It had to be the right situation for him. He was originally interested early on after [Freeman was let go]. But then talk of not being able to promise a teaching job, he walked away and tried to pursue some other things.

“Once he found out there would be a teaching job, [CdM] got back to him.”

Orris said the prolonged hiring process has affected the program, which Freeman guided for 12-plus seasons, going 67-69-2 before being fired in December.

“It has been a difficult situation,” said Orris of the school being forced to open the job again after the top candidate removed himself. “We interviewed a couple of candidates Monday after paper screening more than a dozen applicants. I think the guy we got is an outstanding candidate.”

Orris said he’s glad the Sea Kings found their man. Spring practice is scheduled to start next month.

“This Saturday is going to be two months since I had brain surgery,” said Orris, 60, who returned to teaching this Monday after recovering from brain aneurysm surgery. “I’m probably 90-95 percent. I’m still doing some medical therapy a couple days a week. I’m curtailing some of the after-school activities I used to supervise. I just don’t have the energy, the lasting energy, at the end of the [school] day in the afternoon.”

Finally helping CdM find its football coach should give Orris a boost.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.