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Only in Rialto can you have a Head Coach of a popular local football program treated poorly and tossed aside.

Normally when coaches are forced out it has to do with poor performance from an amazing team or issues with parents & players. In Rialto we seem to mess things up in a very special way! Three years into his time at Eisenhower High School Head Coach Al Brown has resigned his position with the Football program in Rialto. This news comes on the heels of the Eisenhower Eagles return to greatness with a Division CIF Title the first one in 20 years and a very close second in the State Semi Finals against a very powerful Fontana Kaiser Cats football team.

Things all changed with the removal of Eisenhower High School Principal Scott Sparks who brought on coach Brown three years ago in an effort to return the football program to its former greatness. Coach Brown worked hard for two years under the support of Principal Scott Sparks to build a program that brought Eisenhower to its former glory but more importantly created amazing student athletes that are pillars in the community. The goal was to grow young student athletes that would continue to make Rialto proud.

Coach Brown not only raised up some amazing student athletes but he brought a CIF championship back to the Ronnie Lott stadium! Being close to Coach Brown and some of his prior players (now playing college football) this season was tough on Coach Brown. It was tough because the CTE (career Technical Education) class Life Management was not offered to Coach brown this year as new Principal Frank Camacho took over for the departing Scott Sparks. So in order to feed his family and remain available to coach Eisenhower’s Varsity team this year Coach Brown was forced to take substitute jobs. Working as a substitute offers no job security or medical benefits, also coach Brown had to be prepared for a different teaching situation each day. This fact alone made his CIF season even more amazing given what the coach was dealing with this season.

One constant face at Eisenhower High Football games was former Principal Scott Sparks. The former leader of Eisenhower High and a childhood friend of new Eisenhower High Principal Frank Camacho was at as many of Eisenhower’s games. Scott Sparks watched what he started blossom into a season and record that Eisenhower Alumni could brag about!

According to Coach Brown he was told that he would have a teaching contract this week solidifying his place with the Football team. When the deadline to offer this contract came and went coach Brown had no choice but to resign. Eisenhower High School staff have not been happy this year talking about how much life at the school has changed in just one year. Many people close to what Coach Brown was going through this school year hoped that the CIF season would be enough to prove to Eisenhower Administration that Coach Brown was a vital piece to the positive school culture at Eisenhower.

This writer is left wondering what is going on at District Office and what does Dr Avila and the School Board think this latest problem will do to moral and the culture at Eisenhower? According to Syeda Jafri the Communications Director from Rialto Unified “the district has not received a formal resignation from coach Brown, so it would be difficult to comment further on this matter”. Since posting this story it has come to light that the team is still waiting for the end of the year banquet. We have heard from sources that the school district is waiting for the CIF rings to come in so that they can be presented at the banquet. The rings can take 6 weeks to be ready.

One thing that we learned about this year was how difficult it is for schools in low income communities to get their rings. Kaiser High in Fontana was gifted a grant at the Inland Valley Classic Football game on January 26th to buy their CIF rings. Eisenhower High Schools rings are being taken care of by District Office. 

Most gut wrenching about this move is the $300k video that Westbound Communications did for San Bernardino on how hard Cajon High School in San Bernardino worked to keep an amazing sports program together. People gave up jobs and changed their lives to keep the coach in place and make it impossible for him to want to leave. One thing that Athletic Director Richard Imbriani says in this video is we teach kids life skills and how we don’t quit on people. Well apparently Rialto has a lot to learn from San Bernardino!