THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Whitney High School Athletics

Whitney High’s Paul Doherty resigned as head coach of the school’s football program after the Wildcats were declared ineligible for the playoffs by the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section. The decision of ineligibility was made after the SJS received evidence of a rules infraction made during the fall “dead period.” That violation combined with the reporting of previous rule infractions prompted the section’s response; Doherty’s resignation was made at the school level. It was reported that appeals to both the ruling and resignation are planned. Offensive line coach Jesse Armas was named interim head coach of the team. Armas has been an assistant coach at Whitney the past nine years. “This week has definitely been a challenge for me, being an offensive line coach, because usually the offensive line is off in a corner doing their own stuff while Doherty would be doing his,” said Armas, who said it was not his intention to try and be Doherty. “Our offense is not base on the defense; it’s more on reads and whatnot. I have been familiarizing myself with that this week.” As a line coach, Armas said he tends to lean more on the run, but added that the team and remaining coaches are familiar with Doherty’s offense and will only make adjustments as necessary. The interim head coach said the Wildcats’ quarterbacks have trained under Doherty the past three years and know the system well. “The one upside to all this is these quarterbacks have been working with Doherty for a long time, years,” said Armas. “Preston (Eklund), our starting quarterback (against Davis), he’s been working in the system now three years. So he knows it just as good as anybody else so I’ll be reliant on him to help and I’ll help him and we’ll get this thing done.” Armas said the team’s bitter disappointed over the loss of Doherty began to lessen the Monday following the announcement. He said what he has been stressing to the players is that this team belongs to them and that they are far more important than the coaches. “[T]he boys have been awesome. They’ve been really good as far as taking me in,” said Armas. “When it comes down to it in sports it’s not about the coaches. It’s their team is what I’ve been telling them. It’s their team and they just need to play as hard as they possibly can.” Whitney will open its 2017 campaign at Davis High School Friday 7 p.m. The Wildcats shut out the Blue Devils last year, 33-0. Eklund had three touchdown passes in that game.

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Whitney High School Athletics

WHITNEY’S DOHERTY RESIGNS FOLLOWING SECTION SANCTIONS

JIM LINSDAU

Placer Herald | 8/25/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Linsdau