Photo Source: Nathalie Murcia (Sports Editor)
The football team has faced many changes throughout the years, but in the upcoming year for the team, we can see the arrival of new staff members. Not only are there going to be new incoming football players, but the future looks bright with the new addition of Coach Saul Jiminez as the new Head Coach. He will be replacing previous Head Coach, Vincent Gallegos.
Coach Jiminez has high expectations for the incoming team. He tends to use the knowledge he retained after coaching at Roosevelt High School for 5 years and became a coach for OPSU (Oklahoma Panhandle State University) for 1 year. With this knowledge, he plans to pull the football team out of the 2 season slump.
Not only does he have expectations to win the Eastern League Championship, but he also wants to leave a mark on the team and have the players think back about the experience they had. He wants to make sure that this point about being strict goes through the kids, but he also wants to make the whole experience fun.
Coach Jiminez plans to take the lessons taught in football beyond the field. He expects his player to work hard both in the field but also inside the classroom and see the players give back to the community. This year Coach Jiminez will be planning to establish trust, relationships, discipline, and keep following up with his players. Also planning to get to know each player individually and sharing life lessons together and get to know each other. Coach Jiminez is willing to reach his goals no matter what obstacles are thrown his way. He will be winning in the Spring and summer so he wants his players to come ready to work.
Having the coaching staff begin all alumni from Huntington Park High School set the football team staff connected more to the players. They wanted to translate the pride they have for their school to the team. Having played and coach at Roosevelt High School Coach Jiminez saw the opportunity of diversity and expansion of knowledge by coaching at Huntington Park High School. He also saw the opportunity of taking the next step in his football coaching career by going from assistant coach to Head Coach.
Having Coach Jiminez we can already see the start of the football team getting a head start in their season by having a starting weight room already. The future of the football team looks promising. Some final things Head Coach Jiminez wanted us to know about him are that he is also a Special Education teacher and his goal is having all the kids in this class culminate and begin able to transfer to Huntington Park. He is also a DACA recipient and tends to help all of the kids passing through the football team.
By Nathalie Murcia (Sports Editor)