Brad Cesmat
When the biggest job in Arizona high school football comes open, there will undoubtedly be names.
Mike Zdebeski is out as head coach at Hamilton. Semantics aside, he’s out. The job is open.
I’m surprised this move didn’t happen a year ago. Nothing personal with Z; it’s just the nature of the business. Shaun Aguano was available and well-regarded a year ago by CUSD and Hamilton brass. A year later, Aguano makes way too much money at Arizona State to reverse course back to high school.
If you don’t win Open Division titles at Hamilton, you won’t be Hamilton’s head coach for long. It’s that simple.
But have times changed? CUSD has been the premier district for football, but this Saturday we will see an Open Division Title match-up of two west-side programs in Centennial vs Liberty. The head coach of the Lions, Colin Thomas, would/should be someone the CUSD brass reach out to about the Hamilton position. All Thomas has done is win big and build a monster of a program.
I would think names like Andy Litten at Horizon (former Hamilton assistant coach), Brock Farrel (Highland), and former Husky Travis Dixon (Eastmark) are just a few that make sense for a phone call. I’d drop a text to Chandler Hovik at Central. While moving from a Phoenix Union School may be a big jump, if you talk to enough people outside of the forest at Hamilton, you’d see that his resume is beyond impressive in his time at Central. His football mind is tremendous, but would the job be too big of a jump for him? If surrounded by the right assistant coaches, I don’t think so. I’ve had coaches in the college space rave about Hovik.
This will be a job that will attract dozens and dozens of applicants.
