Heritage hires Rich McClure as its new football coach

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Heritage High School has hired veteran coach Rich McClure as its new football coach.

McClure has 40 years experience in coaching. The first half came at the college level, where he began as a conditioning coach. He spent 11 years at Northern Arizona University before moving to California in 2000.

After coaching several years at San Jacinto High, McClure moved over to San Gorgonio. In 2018, his team won the CIF Southern Section Division 9 title, the regional 5AA championship, and was runner-up in the state playoffs.

McClure first met with the team last week, when he said about 200 students hoping to play football turned up. Spring practice begins on Monday.

“I was attracted to the Heritage program.” McClure said. “In the early years with coach [Kraig] Broach, they really impressed me with the culture they created. They’re hard-working and they don’t give up.”

McClure knows the Patriots are coming off an 0-10 season under coach Andre Smith, but believes there is more to the story than a winless record last year.

“I don’t know that there has to be a lot of change,” he said. “You can look at success in different ways. Everybody looks at the 0-10 and says ‘they’re not very good.’ But the year before they had 40 seniors and they won three league games [5-6 overall]. Last year they had mostly sophomores and juniors.

“When I met with the kids, they seemed really excited to get going. We’re all looking forward to it.”