Servite High football coach Chris Reinert stepping down

Call it March Madness in February for the Trinity League.

Just one day after it was announced that Rod Sherman was no longer Orange Lutheran’s football coach, Servite announced Tuesday that third-year coach Chris Reinert had resigned. This means there will be three new head coaches in the league this fall, with JSerra having already hired Hardy Nickerson as their new coach.

Five of the six schools have changed coaches in the past three years, which is unusual for a league that supposedly seeks to produce winning programs. Only St. John Bosco and coach Jason Negro remained together, with Negro being hired in 2010. Santa Margarita, Mater Dei, Servite, JSerra and Orange Lutheran all made multiple coaching changes.

The move began when Troy Thomas was ousted from Servite and replaced by Reinert in 2023. Thomas had won two Southern Section Division 1 titles in two stints for the Friars.

Then Bruce Rollinson retired at Mater Dei after the controversial 2022 season, when the school faced a lawsuit and hired a law firm to produce a security assessment. The president who promised to publish the report has been replaced. Then Mater Dei hired assistant Frank McManus, who guided the Monarchs to a state title in 2023. He lasted just one season and was replaced by former Long Beach Poly coach Raul Lara in 2024.

Santa Margarita made a coaching change after an alleged hazing incident in 2024. The school hired alumnus and Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer, who found immediate success last season when the Eagles won the Section 1 and Open Division state titles.

JSerra fired former Azusa Pacific coach Victor Santa Cruz last November after three seasons and hired Nickerson, a former NFL player and coach, in December as his new coach. Then came the departures this week of Sherman after five years and Reinert.

Head coaches in the Trinity League are well paid, but they are asked to handle situations that can easily turn into a crisis, whether it’s dealing with boosters, parents, transfers or playing time. And it never stops, with each program trying to outdo the other and coaches expected to create offseason programs that include working with seventh- and eighth-graders in camps and seven-on-seven competitions.

“People don’t understand the pressures and how difficult it is to coach in this league,” Negro said.

There have been at least 25 head coaching changes in the league over the past two decades. Every school community hopes to compete at the highest level and fundraising for private schools is made immensely easier by a successful program. Coaches who take on this task know that breakthroughs are needed within three to five years, or they could disappear.

“It was 100 percent my decision and it was something I had been thinking about for a while,” Reinert said. “I had a pleasant experience.”

Reinert said he would explore coaching opportunities at a higher level and help several Servite assistants transition while the school searches for a replacement.

As for Servite’s future, Thomas recently left his defensive coordinator position at Edison and would certainly be interested in a third stint at a school he says he still loves. Until last season, he was the only coach since 2016 to guide a team to the Southern Section Division 1 final (2021) to break the St. John Bosco-Mater Dei monopoly.