keith

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SoCalHoops High School News

Sage Hill Picks Steve Keith
As New Head Coach--(May 22, 2002)

According to reports in both the LA Times and the Orange County Register earlier this week, Steve Keith, 52, who coached Glendale HS to two CIF Southern Section titles in 10 years and coached Irvine to it's only league title has been hired as the new head coach at Sage Hill High School in Newport, replacing Gordon McNeill, who resigned due to personal reasons: McNeill's wife will be serving her medical residency in the San Fernando Valley, and the drive to Orange County would be overwhelming.... Keith, who is also a P.E. teacher at Irvine as well as the boys and girls JV tennis coach there, will continue to hold those jobs, and will be a walk-on coach at Sage Hill for boys' basketball.

Keith told the Times he has not seen much high school basketball at the Academy League level, but he is anxious to work in the small-schools environment. "The first things they told me about the job was that there was no fund-raising allowed and no offseason contact," Keith told the Times. "They may have been trying to scare me off, but it was music to my ears. The important thing for me, was that the scope of the job matched what I had to offer."

Keith attended high school and played basketball at Burroughs High in Burbank. After graduation he started two years at Cal State Northridge before (back when it was Division II, and called Valley State College). Upon graduation, he entered the coaching profession. Keith's Glendale team won the CIF Division 2-A title in 1981, and the 4-A title in 1985. Keith will hire Dave Shoemaker, a former El Toro High head coach who spent 10 seasons as an assistant at the University of the Pacific as his assistant. Shoemaker also coached Tulare High to a CIF Central Section title, before returning to Orange County last year.