CUTTING NO SLACK ON TEAM COACH WON'T LET GRADES SLIDE.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Michael Bunch, coach of the new Golden Valley High School's first varsity baseball team, is Santa Clarita's ``Coach Carter'' to some but a disappointment to others.

After fall semester report cards came out, Bunch dropped eight players - four of them expected to be on the varsity team - from the fledgling program because their grades fell below the required 2.0, or ``C,'' grade-point average.

Since then four of those players have sought transfers to other schools.

Bunch was unwilling to let them remain on the team to practice and then play if their grades improved on the March report cards, which will coincide with the spring season.

``I've lost sleep over it,'' Bunch said in a recent interview. ``I've beaten myself up over it. I've thought about taking it back, but I still think I did the right thing.

``It seems people are losing sight of what's important at school.''

His logic was this: If the kids are struggling before the season begins, they'll have an even tougher time in the classroom come spring when practice and play begin. They need to focus on their grades, he said, much like ``Coach Carter,'' the title character of the high school basketball movie based on a true story of a hard-driving coach who demanded success across-the-board.

Now Bunch's Grizzlies face a tough inaugural freelance varsity season before plunging next year into the highly competitive play of the Foothill League.

Parent Robert Pena, who coached the team during the fall off-season, said he plans to transfer his son to Alemany High School, a Catholic campus in Mission Hills, after the infielder was cut from the team for poor grades. Alemany coach Randy Thompson, who headed Golden Valley's program last year, confirmed Pena's son was scheduled to take the school's entrance exam on Saturday.

``We said, 'Can't you give them a chance? They can rebound,''' Pena said. ``Three of those kids were anchors of the team. They failed a class. They should have been given a second chance.

``They've got a lot of angry parents now.''

The baseball program at Golden Valley is in shambles.

Popular head coach Thompson, who lives locally and ran Alemany's team for a decade, got the top baseball job at Golden Valley last year, intrigued by the opportunity to start a program from scratch in a town known for talented high school athletes. Unable to get the facilities and equipment he needed, he decided to return to Alemany.

Thompson said that after working at a private school it was difficult to work with the public school system in establishing a field complex for his start-up team.

He said Bunch is in a difficult position.

``I wish him nothing but the best of luck,'' said Thompson, who met ``for a few hours'' with Bunch to pass the reins. ``He's in a tough situation.''

Regarding Bunch's hard line on academic eligibility - more strict than rules imposed by the governing Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation - Thompson said: ``You've got to do what you think is right.''

Bunch hasn't been able to pick up the pieces, said Pena, who helped coach the Grizzlies during the off-season winter program. He says the coach was stubborn and refused his offers of help, including a gift of records, videos and other information about the team.

``When Randy walked, I was the last man standing,'' Pena said.

Bunch, who played baseball in high school, at Golden West Community College and at Hartnell College in Salinas, acknowledges his coaching inexperience. But if he's going to do the job, he wants to do it his way - a philosophy his predecessor Thompson endorses.

This is his first time coaching high school baseball, though he's coached youth leagues. A history teacher, he was hired for his abilities in the classroom then tapped by Principal Jacque Snyder - whose son coaches the highly regarded Valencia High baseball team - as head coach of Grizzly baseball.

Snyder did not return a call but referred questions to Joel Nelson, Golden Valley's assistant principal and athletic administrator.

``You could legally keep a kid that's academically ineligible on the team and let them practice, but in the case of baseball, the season starts before the next report card comes out,'' Nelson said. ``Our focus is grades first. When kids are ineligible, we want them to focus on getting grades up.''

Snyder, he said, ``fully supported'' Bunch's decision.

Pena said the baseball program and other sports at Golden Valley will fail because the school, which opened in 2004 and won't have seniors until next school year, has poor facilities and philosophies that don't encourage good athletes to enroll. Grizzly football saw similar defections over the winter break.

``Nobody's going to come to this school to play sports,'' Pena predicted. For coach Bunch, he knows the season will be a tough one and he wishes the best for the boys who transferred. But he's determined to build a program on his terms.

``I'm not one of those guys who says win at all costs.''

Patricia Farrell Aidem, [phone]

pat.aidem(at)dailynews.com