Kennedy Assistant Hired to Coach at Mission

Scott Drootin, an assistant baseball coach at Kennedy High the past two years, has been named co-coach of the Mission College baseball program, it was announced Saturday.

Drootin, a resident of Northridge, replaces Doug Dingman, who was fired June 30 during the wave of faculty layoffs in the Los Angeles Community College District.

Officially, Drootin will be an assistant to Mission Athletic Director Phil Lozano, who is scheduled to coach the baseball and men’s soccer teams during the 1986-87 season. Lozano, however, said the arrangement is just a formality.

“Scott will be running the team,” Lozano said. “We have to do it this way because of the way the district is set up for athletics this year.”

The strange setup is the aftereffect of faculty cutbacks in the district. For the 1986-87 school year, only full-time physical education teachers are authorized to coach intercollegiate athletic teams. Lozano, who last coached baseball in 1962 at San Fernando High, fits that qualification.

Drootin, however, is the man Lozano wants to rebuild a program that was 5-19 in 1986.

“We opened it up for interviews, and he is the one that fits our particular needs the best,” Lozano said.

At Kennedy, Golden Cougars Coach Dick Whitney returned from a three-week vacation to learn that he had lost his pitching coach.

“I hate to hear it,” Whitney said. “He’s done an exceptional job with our kids. He’s been very dedicated, and I’m sure he’ll do the job for them. My loss is Mission’s gain, unfortunately.”