Aron Gideon is named football coach at Taft

Aron Gideon is taking on a difficult rebuilding job. He was named football coach at onetime City Section power Taft High on Thursday. The problem is the Toreadors have been suffering from hard times for years.

Taft didn’t win any games on the field this past season at the varsity or junior varsity levels. Ed Tucker tried to bring some organizational skills in his only season as head coach while being a full-time on-campus teacher.

Gideon, a former assistant at Chaminade and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame who played football at Bishop Amat and UCLA, was an assistant at Taft in 2018. He was hired as a full-time teacher at Taft in the fall while not coaching this season.

“Well, there’s definitely a lot of opportunity for improvement,” he said. “I love being part of the community.”

At a minimum, Taft has made one giant leap by making its football coach an on-campus teacher. That hasn’t happened since Troy Starr left after the 2006 season. Starr arrived in 1992 and guided the Toreadors to six championship game appearances and produced the likes of Steve Smith while winning a 1998 City title.

Gideon gets to start from the bottom while having learned from head coaches Terry Donahue, Ed Croson and Kevin Rooney.

Many City Section teams have been forced to turn to walk-ons as their head coach, hurting stability. Taft will finally get to begin anew.