Sierra coach a one-year wonder

Published online on Tuesday, Oct. 06, 2009

Take a seat. Rob Hastie is talking.

He does a lot of that, and unlike most exhaustive orators, his thoughts are almost always fascinating and memorable.

This year, he is the varsity football coach at Sierra High School. Next year, he won't be. In fact, he's never been a varsity football coach before, and probably never will be again.

But for one season, he has the microphone.

It's a unique experience for the 21 varsity football players at Sierra. Yes, that's it. There are only 21 of them, one short of a full offense and defense, but every day they get philosophy.

Rob Hastie doesn't throw helmets or punch lockers or scream short, cringe-inducing words. He quotes Henry David Thoreau. He's working on a manifesto. He has a used book collection. He's writing a legal thriller. He has as many thoughts on theology as he does the veer option offense.

"I will go on all day," he says, and is selling himself far short.

How a man like that became the football coach at Sierra High is, of course, an interesting story, but not nearly as interesting as how he got to the foothills in the first place.

One day, almost 10 years ago, Hastie walked into his boss's office. It was 4:30 p.m. on a Friday and he said, I don't want to be you when I grow up. I want to do something important with my life.

Hastie was a civil litigator in Orange County, defending insurance companies and other businesses against lawsuits. He was quoted on the cover of the Los Angeles Times. He had it all. Big office. Secretary. Volvo. Swimming pool. Mortgage to bankrupt a small European country.

And he quit. That day. Just like that. Gave that speech about doing something important, and he and his wife sold everything and moved to Auberry, where their water comes from a well and their warmth comes from a fire.

His wife, Kathy Hastie, has a master's degree from USC and now she might be the most over-qualified substitute teacher in the Sierra Unified School District.

It's what a lot of people talk about, but rarely do.

"Serving others is where it's at, not serving yourself," Rob Hastie likes to say.

"Simplicity and struggle builds character," is another favorite.

They understand simplicity and struggle at Sierra High. This was a school that once dominated at football and most every other sport. Twenty years ago, they had T-shirts that read "Monsters of the Foothills," and now thanks to new schools and a lack of jobs, the school has half the kids it once did.

They don't have a freshman football team anymore, haven't won a league title since 2000. In mid-June, the then-Sierra High football coach, J.D. Burnett, made the last-minute and agonizing decision to leave for one of those new schools, Minarets High, and better job security.

Burnett told the team at the first summer workouts, and the assistants were shocked and expecting the players to vent and cry and complain. Instead, the players started the workouts on their own.

"You know what the reaction was?" asks Gary DelSimone, who has been the football coach or an assistant at Sierra since 1981. "Go to work. It doesn't matter who coaches us. We're the ones who play. We're accountable to each other. We're going to make the most of our senior year."

At the same time, Rob Hastie was looking for a job. He'd just been laid off from Sierra High as the AP history and special education teacher because of budget cuts. So the district tucked pride in the back pocket and asked him to come back as the one-year interim football coach and PE teacher. Hastie had helped with the JV team and coached most of the players back in pee-wees. His son, Tim, is one of the 14 seniors on the team.

The players are as no-nonsense as their 46-year-old philosophical coach. ("Lawyers hate their jobs," Hastie says. "They're all miserable.") He bluffs at not knowing what he's doing as a coach, but admits, "We're going to say, 'Poor ol' Sierra' and then try to surprise some people."

And, of course, they have. The Chieftains beat Central Valley Christian and then Fowler and then Farmersville. They finally lost last weekend to Dos Palos. They're 3-1.

DelSimone actually recommended Hastie to the school board over himself, and is still assistant, making it one of the few teams where the assistant coach is far more qualified than the head coach.

"It used to take me three months to make what I make in a year now," Hastie says. "There's more to life than money. But that's what you think when you're young, that the pursuit of power and money and influence has importance."

He might be right about the money and power, but as far as those 21 players are concerned, he's never had more influence.