Time Was Finally Right for RB's Elrod to Step Down

There was a time, earlier in his coaching career, that Brad Elrod thought about retirement. But his wife, Terry, wouldn’t hear of it.

“I’ve tried to quit before,” Elrod said recently from his office at Rancho Bernardo High School. “But my wife told me, ‘You won’t be happy, and I won’t be happy.’ ”

And so Brad Elrod continued to coach football at Rancho Bernardo until the time was right, which happened to be last month, when he announced his retirement after 20 years as a Broncos coach, including the last four as the varsity head coach.

“This has been a great place for me,” said Elrod, who has been coaching at RB since 1991. “I had 16 great years as an assistant under Bill Christopher the first five years and then Ron Hamamoto for 11 years.

“When I took the (head coaching) job, I told them it would be for four years.”

Elrod has stuck to his game plan after recently turning 60.

“I thought for a long while that this would probably be the year,” said Elrod, who said he plans to stay for another year of teaching and helping out with the football program. The school was quick to promote Tristan McCoy to the head job after the former Broncos linebacker had served six years as an assistant coach.

“I’ve told Tristan I could help him out if he needed anything,” Elrod said, “and I might just help with the freshman team, where I can show some of the younger kids how to get into a proper stance.”

The Broncos are coming off a solid season, having won nine of 12 games while advancing to the CIF San Diego Section Division I quarterfinals in 2010. Elrod says the foundation is in place for continued success.

“This administration has done a good job keeping the people intact here,” Elrod said. “Things are in place, and we have a number of guys who have been here for a while.

“The time is close for some of those guys to do something different, but we have some good young coaches. We’re in good shape here.”

Brad and Terry, who have been married for 34 years, will now have more time to visit with their new grandson, Wesley Bradley, who was born just last month.

“Our daughter, Jill, lives in Murrieta with her family, so they’re not too far away,” said Brad. “And our son Michael is in the Navy, stationed in Pensacola, so we hope to have the chance to visit him soon.”

Elrod said one of the things he’ll miss the most about coaching football is the competition.

“This senior class loves competition,” he said. “They love to play. That’s a level of passion that hopefully will carry on.”