Stachowski No Longer on Deck at San Juan Hills High

Mike Stachowski has been relieved of his water polo coaching duties at San Juan Hills High partly because he has also been serving as girls water polo coach at Tesoro High, Stallions Athletic Director Armando Gonzalez said Friday.

"The conflict in his coaching duties between Tesoro and San Juan Hills is part of what lead us to seek other options as our head coach," Gonzalez said. “We came to a mutual agreement that he was no longer able to serve as our coach.”

Stachowski, a walk-on coach who doesn't teach at either school, resigned as girls water polo coach at San Clemente in the spring of 2009, but when his hiring by San Juan Hills was reported at that time, he was already coaching at Tesoro.

Apparently, Stachwoski  continued to coach at both schools for two years. San Juan Hills, which opened in the fall of 2007, practiced and played its home games eight miles away at Tesoro. According to Tesoro’s athletic website, Stachowski continues to coach the Titans’ swimming and girls water polo teams.

“We were not aware that he was doing both until it was brought to our attention this year,” Gonzalez said.

While both schools are members of the Coast View Conference, Tesoro competes in the South Coast League in girls water polo, while San Juan Hills competes in the Sea View League.

In an e-mail exchange with a Tesoro Aquatics Boosters board member, when asked if they knew Stachowski was coaching both girls polo teams, the response: "Yes we were aware. Is there a problem?" Follow-up questions were not answered.

Gonzalez said the girls program at San Juan Hills “never got off the ground last year.” And this season, there were only six girls on the Stallions’ varsity, but it takes seven to field a starting lineup.

“By league rules, we fielded a girls varsity and forfeited each league game,” Gonzalez said. “The coaches then agreed to scrimmage one of their lower-level teams against us.”

The San Juan Hills boys varsity finished 8-18 overall last fall but went 0-8 in the Sea View League.

Phone and e-mail messages beginning Friday at 6:30 p.m. to Stachwoski, who previously coached water polo at Orange Coast College and is a water polo referee and longtime club coach in the area, were not returned.