CSUS fill its AD slot — for now

It’s been quite a whirlwind for the Hillsborough school’s athletic department as Whitmore is the Gryphons’ fourth AD in about year. Former AD Michael Flynn stepped down at the end of the 2017 season and was replaced by Rob Cannone, a longtime coach at the school, as interim AD last year. A new AD was introduced in the spring, but didn’t stick around long.

“He was here for three weeks,” Whitmore said, who added he didn’t know why his predecessor left.

After all, Whitmore has only been on the job for eight days and was alerted to the job about two weeks ago.

“I was retired,” Whitmore said, who had coached basketball, including the head coach at University of Vermont and an assistant at St. Bonaventure, and served as an AD for a total of 43 years before retiring from Bedford High School in New Hampshire following the 2016-17 school year.

“Life was good,” Whitmore continued. “I was consulting at schools for three or four months, then coaching basketball. I wasn’t bored. Not once. I wasn’t planning on doing this.”

An East Coast native, having spent the last 43 years in the New England/Upstate New York area, it seemed divine intervention that Whitmore would end up in Hillsborough.

It just so happens his son, Aaron, is the director of admissions at Crystal Springs. Any coincidence that Bill Whitmore is the school’s new AD?

“They tried to get the most experienced AD they could find,” Whitmore said. “Not looking for a job, but it’s all about family. That was the number one motive (to spend more time with his son and family). But the other thing was, this is what I’ve done for the last 43 years.

“This is my eighth school and everything happens for a reason.”

Whitmore’s other son, Nick, served as a basketball assistant coach under Rex Walters at University of San Francisco.

Whitmore has seen — and done — it all when it comes to athletics. When he took over the Bedford job, it was a brand-new school and he built the department from the ground up. Prior to that, he was AD at Milton Academy. During his time in New Hampshire high school sports, his teams won 52 state championships.

The Gryphons will have to hurry if they are to add to Whitmore’s state title haul as he will only be with Crystal Springs for this school year as it continues to search for a full-time AD.

“I’ll help any way I can (in the search), but that discussion hasn’t been brought up,” Whitmore said.

In the meantime, Whitmore will do what he does and that is to serve the student-athletes and their coaches.

“[The department] has some good coaches, gets good support from the administration,” Whitmore said. “I’ve met with a lot of the coaches and I’m just trying to make the program better. You do this because of the kids and it seems like they’re good kids.”

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Menlo-Atherton announced the 2018 induction class for the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame earlier this week.

Seven individuals and two teams — the 1965 swim team and the 1985 boys’ soccer team — will be honored at the annual Hall of Fame Induction Banquet. The rest of the inductees include athletes Casey Beckstrom (class of 2001), Robert Crumpler (1980), Alex Haley (2010), Shaun Paga (1996) and Diane Seely (2011).

A pair of longtime coaches will also be inducted — Marino Mangiola, who coached boys’ soccer from 1977 to 1985, and Rick Longyear, longtime aquatics coach who recently died of cancer. Mangiola, who is also in the Sequoia High School Hall of Fame, died in 2015.

The induction dinner is scheduled for Oct. 13 at the Palo Alto Elks Lodge. Cost is $40 per ticket, limited to 250. For more information, email co-athletic directors Steven Kryger or Paul Snow at skryger@seq.org or psnow@seq.org.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.