Sunday Punch Left Him Dazed : Tolzin Part of Camarillo Softball Despite Losing Job

CAMARILLO — Nearly a year has passed since softball coach Darwin Tolzin was faced with the most troubling choice of his life: Quit or be fired.

Either way, the 55-year-old former world-class softball pitcher had to leave a Camarillo High program that he had built into a perennial power.

Tolzin guided the Scorpions for 5 1/2 seasons, winning a Southern Section 5-A Division title in 1991, before he reluctantly resigned last year.

“All of my life, building up my credibility, playing ball and being successful at it, spending time with kids and being successful with that and . . . in one insignificant incident--in my mind--all of this came crashing down,” Tolzin said.

Tolzin’s career took a turn on May 21, 1995, when he spent 15 minutes of his Sunday pitching to outfielder Jefflyn Spahr on the Camarillo softball field.

Southern Section rules prohibit coaches from practicing with players on Sunday, and Camarillo was forced to forfeit its second-round playoff victory over San Marcos.

For Terry Tackett, Camarillo’s principal, the incident was the final straw. Tired of dealing with a popular coach with a penchant for doing things his own way, Tackett asked Tolzin for his resignation.

Tolzin’s lifestyle has changed dramatically since he stepped down. He no longer wakes up before dawn to work a 4:30-to-12:30 shift as a Navy meteorologist so he can get to the practice field by 2 p.m. Nor does he spend his weekends meticulously grooming the high school softball fields for the upcoming week. He has been succeeded as president of the Ventura County Softball Coaches Assn.

And yet some of his routine is the same. Tolzin still treats Camarillo players to an occasional pizza party. He gives pitching lessons to Camarillo ace Cindy Ball and talks to catcher Jessica Mendoza nearly every day. He also pitches batting practice to any player who asks--even on Sunday.

Camarillo (19-2-1), which opens the Division I playoffs Friday against Los Altos at 3:15 p.m., is still winning. And, as much as ever, Tolzin is enjoying the support of past and present players, including his replacement, Nichole Victoria.

Victoria, a former Camarillo star, played at UCLA from 1991 to 1994. When she was asked to take over at her alma mater, her first thought was of Tolzin.

“When I was younger, the Camarillo Kings were in town and Darwin was the pitcher,” she said. “I used to go out when I was 10 years old and watch Darwin pitch. Then I got him as a coach and I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

The respect that Victoria has for Tolzin has never wavered, even when it came to landing her first coaching job.

“I wanted to make sure that if I did take the job that he would support me in that decision,” Victoria said.

Tolzin gave Victoria a ringing endorsement and has helped her behind the scenes.

“Right when the season started, I had problems, and he and [assistant coach Darryl] Joynt helped me out a lot,” Victoria said. “They talked to me and kept me into the whole coaching thing, giving me pointers and helping me along. They’ve been a tremendous help.”

Despite the forfeit incident, many Camarillo players wanted Tolzin to stay and are glad he still finds time to help them.

“The principal should have understood that Darwin was like, softball at Camarillo,” Mendoza said. “When I was a little kid, he was like a god. That’s what I thought. I always looked up to him a lot.”

Ball, a sophomore, said she considers Tolzin “like a family member.”

“I think he could have been penalized in a different way,” she said. “That’s the hard thing to take, because he was just helping and we get the bum deal out of it.”

But not everyone felt close to Tolzin. Several people close to the Camarillo program say his relationship with Tackett was strained from the start.

Tolzin was hired in 1990 by Tackett’s predecessor, Don Bathgate, a longtime Camarillo resident who followed Tolzin’s career with the Kings.

The Scorpions flourished immediately when Tolzin took over, but Bathgate retired in the summer of 1993.

Tolzin said he had problems from the start with Tackett. The coach planted some trees near the new softball fields without first getting the principal’s approval. That was strike one.

Tolzin defied the Marmonte League’s “no-handshake rule,” a brainchild of Tackett’s that prohibited league athletes from exchanging post-game handshakes. Tolzin thought the rule was ridiculous. Strike two.

“He called me in and told me that I shouldn’t shake hands anymore, and if I shook hands in front of him it was kind of a slap in the face,” Tolzin said. “I told him that I understood that.”

Then came the illegal practice and Tolzin telling Tackett that he did not practice with Spahr. Strike three. Tolzin was out.

Tolzin says he was working on the field with an assistant when Spahr showed up with her father and asked for some batting practice. He complied.

“Had she been five minutes later, we would have been gone, because we were walking away as she drove in,” Tolzin said.

Tolzin said he lied to Tackett trying to save the reputation of Spahr and her father, who, he said, assured Tackett they did not practice with the coach on a Sunday.

“By that time, events kind of overtook me where I wasn’t able to do the right thing,” Tolzin said.

Tackett did not return numerous requests to be interviewed for this story. Several of Tolzin’s Marmonte League adversaries do not think the penalty fit the crime.

“It’s a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when somebody is out to get you,” Newbury Park Coach Mike Morgan said. “I thought under other circumstances, the penalty would not have been as great at other schools.”

Tolzin’s reputation as an outstanding player and a successful coach has survived the incident, and that, he said, is “probably what I worried about most.”

He can still throw a mean riseball and he’ll be pitching for a couple of men’s teams this summer.

Tolzin retained his job as a meteorologist and supervises a team of eight who know him as the Head of the Geophysics Operations.

But after 36 years with that outfit, Tolzin said, he would leave tomorrow for the right coaching job. He’s had plenty of offers.

Phil Bruder, an Amateur Softball Assn. coach, wants Tolzin to help him start a softball academy in Colorado. Tolzin said he also has been contacted about coaching at a local junior college. And then there are the men’s fast-pitch teams that would like to call him Coach.

If money propelled Tolzin, he would head to Colorado, where he said he could earn a six-figure salary coaching young softball players. But after a two-week tryout in March, Tolzin knew that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

“It just wasn’t rewarding,” he said. “I told my wife, ‘Well, I could do it. We’d probably have more money than we’ve ever had in our life, but our kids would be the ones who’d be rich, because I’d be dead in two years.’ ”

What Tolzin clearly prefers is to catch on with a program he can nurture either on his own or as an assistant.

“I’m going to be coaching pretty soon,” he said. “I don’t know at what level, but if I had my druthers, I would rather go into a college program.”

In the meantime, he serves as Victoria’s private coach, helping her tune up for her summer season with an ASA team.

Need help with your game? Call Tolzin. He is no longer bound by anyone else’s rules.

“I have a lot of respect for him,” Victoria said. “A lot of people wouldn’t do what he has done for this program, or for me, after what’s happened.”