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Several Lancers players have been outraged since news broke in the locker room that football head coach Thom Kaumeyer will not return to coach the team next season and will be replaced by Fullerton College quarterback coach Tom Maher.

Kaumeyer coached PCC to a 2-8 record in the 2015 fall season, but many of the players feel this past season wasn’t an accurate representation of the team under Kaumeyer due to the timing of his hiring.

“He was hired in late June, early July and our first game was in September,” said freshman lineman Ben Kaiser. “You can’t expect us to learn a new system in just a few months.”

While the Lancers didn’t enjoy success on the field, players like freshman linebacker Daniel Wire feel Kaumeyer’s biggest success was off the field.

“In his short time here, not only has he brought the Pasadena football team together as a community and a brotherhood, but he has also changed the entire environment around the campus,” Wire said. “He is, and I think a lot of players would say the same, a father figure to a lot of players on this team.”

Kaumeyer was only hired as an interim head coach, but the team fully expected him to be there next year.

“Forget football, forget everything,” said sophomore defensive back Robert Morgan. “We trust T.K. It took us the whole season to trust him but now we know we have someone we can turn to. Now they’re just going to take that away from me and the team? It’s not right.”

Given Kaumeyer’s coaching experience with NCAA Division 1 football and the NFL, sophomore QB Marc Peart thinks Kaumeyer is more than qualified to be coaching at PCC.

“We’re honestly really lucky to have him,” Peart said. “If he were given a chance to interview for the job I think his resume would hold up.”

Kaumeyer’s replacement, Tom Maher, coached at PCC for 9 years from 1996 to 2004, tying the record for longest tenured coach in PCC history. Despite these ties to PCC, a number of players believe his ties to Fullerton contributed to his hiring.

Current superintendent-president Dr. Rajen Vurdien served as the president of Fullerton College from May 2010 to April 2015, around the same time Maher was coaching at Fullerton—2007 to 2014.

PCC’s Executive Director of Strategic Communications and Marketing Alexander Boekelheide confirmed that Kaumeyer’s time with PCC has come to an end.

“Coach Kaumeyer will not be returning next year,” said Boekelheide in an email. “The college is grateful for his service and wishes him the best in his future endeavors. Coach Maher will be returning as the College’s head Football coach effective the 2016/17 football season. “

According to Boekelheide, “Coach Maher’s hiring was conducted in accordance with the appropriate hiring policy and procedure.”

Once the team was informed that their coach would not return next season, many members of the team took to Twitter with the hashtag #KeepCoachTK.

The hiring is expected to be announced at the next Board of Trustees meeting where many members of the team will show up to fight for Kaumeyer’s coaching position.

This story has been updated.

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11 Replies to “Football players furious over replacement of head coach”

  1. I think if we want to get on the discussion of qualification this Thom Kaumeyer guy is most qualified.
    He has coached at at the Junior College, Division 1 and NFL level, and since everyone is posting bios, i say lets take at look at Kaumeyer’s.

    http://www.greatwebdesign.biz/athleticspc/tkaumeyer.html
    https://www.palomar.edu/athletics/football/history/99season/coaches.htm
    https://goaztecs.com/sorry.ashx
    https://tulanegreenwave.com/sorry.ashx
    https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-kaumeyer-pasadena-aztecs-palomar-football-2015aug15-htmlstory.html
    The article directly above states how qualified this man is and i quote him “We’ll make some mistakes, but it’s what you do after you make a mistake that builds winners.” He has not even gotten at chance to go back this upcoming season and completely reshape the program how he intended to. Now below i am posting a website that has his NFL coaching jobs, i could not find archives of his NFL coaching bios.
    https://www.profootballarchives.com/kaum00200coach.html

  2. Played 2 years for Coach Maher at Fullerton. He gave me a shot out of South Pas High when nobody wanted to take me. He recognized my dedication to the game and allowed me to come compete for a starting position. I went on to earn a Division 1 scholarship and a free education. 3 years later, I am very blessed to say that I am a college graduate. Change is scary but PCC team will love Coach Maher and will love winning

  3. I enjoy the Courier Ahmad, and do not doubt some players are not happy. Alas, that is the world, isn’t it. Was the past and future coach contacted for the article? Journalistic standards would require it.

    Four players quoted. None sound “furious” in the quotes used. And another permutation of your Courier headline suggests it is worse, the entire team. I agree the story stands as what it is, but that is not good journalism.

    “He was hired in late June, early July and our first game was in September,” said freshman lineman Ben Kaiser. “You can’t expect us to learn a new system in just a few months.”

    “In his short time here, not only has he brought the Pasadena football team together as a community and a brotherhood, but he has also changed the entire environment around the campus,” Wire said. “He is, and I think a lot of players would say the same, a father figure to a lot of players on this team.”

    “Forget football, forget everything,” said sophomore defensive back Robert Morgan. “We trust T.K. It took us the whole season to trust him but now we know we have someone we can turn to. Now they’re just going to take that away from me and the team? It’s not right.”

    “We’re honestly really lucky to have him,” Peart said. “If he were given a chance to interview for the job I think his resume would hold up.”

  4. The Society for Professional Journalism has ethics codes:

    https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

    – Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources.

    – Consider sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Reserve anonymity for sources who may face danger, retribution or other harm, and have information that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Explain why anonymity was granted.

    – Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.

    Ignoring these goals so egregiously is a disservice to community, truth and journalism.

    This piece is a hit job and not journalism. That’s the only reason I responded. I would suggest readers consider “anonymous” commentators with unsupported allegations in the same context.

    1. Relax professor ha ha ha
      Get’s all mad over a student article.

      Let’s have some fun. So you can be happy again. C0rekt mi Gramer.
      Huked on phoniks wurked fur me

      😀 ;D

  5. Tom Maher was fired for recruiting violations. He has never coached outside of the Junior College level and his records also reflect why he was eventually fired. 3-17 his final two years.

    1. Michael I am clearly going by your information you shared. You posted, as PCC won its first conference championship?in 34 years? So based on your information he was the coach at PCC in 01 and the bio link you shared clearly states he was the head coach. So what happened? If he was so good then during the glory days why leave. One can only assume he was fired but you apparently are close to the situation so please share. Maybe he is the right coach for the job but based on his bio that you shared he has not been a head coach since PCC. Raises more questions than answers.

      Don’t take it personal Michael you gotta admit it is strange that his last head coaching gig is at PCC.

  6. I was ready to protest with the players, but when I went to his Fullerton bio at: https://www.fchornets.com/sports/fball/coaches/5maher_tom I found out that Coach “Maher was voted Junior College National Coach of the Year in 2001 (American?Football Monthly magazine), as PCC won its first conference championship?in 34 years.? He was the Mission Conference Northern Division Coach of the Year in?’01, and? Mission Conference and South County Bowl champions (10-1?record).”

    Sounds like a pretty strong hire to me. We might just see a return to the glory days. Do teams usually keep interim coaches with 2 and 8 records?

    1. Glory Days we can only hope but the real question is if he was that good to begin with why was he fired from PCC? I am curious to know his record when he was at Pasadena. Fullerton has a great program so if there is a connection between the president and Fullerton why did we settle for the quarterbacks coach, we need the head coach. Then we can talk about glory days.

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