Doug Bledsoe has made the rounds as a high school football coach. He’s been head coach at North Hollywood, Dorsey, Pasadena and University. He says his latest coaching position will be his last until his 3-year-old grandson reaches high school.
It’s going to be his most challenging, trying to rebuild a Narbonne program that once again had an exodus of players and coaches after rule violations caused the City Section to impose a three-year playoff ban and make the program vacate its City title. This also happened in 2019 and the team dropped to 2-9 during a similar transition year in 2021.
Bledsoe insists, “The Narbonne Gauchos ain’t dead.”
He has four returning all-league players, including King’leon Sheard, a defensive end who had two sacks in last season’s City Section Open Division final won by the Gauchos. They chose to stay even though there will be no playoffs when the 10-game regular season ends.
“They love the school,” Bledsoe said. “We told them what we could do for them.”
There’s about 30 varsity players. Bledsoe is confident he and his staff can prepare his many new varsity players for the season ahead. Playing 10 games will be better than the eight games played last season when Marine League coaches boycotted playing the Gauchos, resulting in the loss of four games.
A new coach and a new principal give the Gauchos a chance to start over. The harsh penalty imposed also could be reduced with good behavior. One sign of the dramatic change in a year’s time is that the Gauchos had 27 transfers in the football program a year ago. There are currently none in the City Section transfer portal for this season.
The starting quarterback will be basketball point guard Quamare Meadows, who was the JV quarterback two seasons ago but didn’t play last season.
Narbonne opens on the road against Los Osos on Aug. 22. It will play its first league game in two seasons against runner-up San Pedro on Oct. 3.