greenwood resigns

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SoCalHoops High School News

Verbum Dei's David Greenwood
Resigns? It's True--(Dec. 23, 1999)

We just got an e-mail from one of our sources at Pasadena Marshall Fundamental, and at first we thought it was just another of those practical jokes which some of the Marshall "rivals" were playing on us again (like when we got e-mail telling us that Jason Sandford wasn't playing and that DeVerion Mackey had transferred. . . none of which was true).

Here's what we received today:

"Marshall Fundamental's home game against Verbum Dei has been postponed due to the resignation of Verbum Dei's coach David Greenwood. The rest of Verbum Dei's games will be rescheduled."

This time we weren't going to get fooled, so we called David Greenwood at home a few minutes ago, and spoke directly with him.

Guess what? It's no joke. David did resign as coach, and it happened evidently a few weeks ago.

"Yes, I resigned a few weeks ago," Greenwood told us by phone. "I did it for several reasons. First, I told the school I was only going to make a two year commitment, and that ended last year. Second, I have a daughter who is playing right now at Bishop Amat, and when she came home and said to me 'You know dad, if you spent half as much time with me as you do with those boys, I bet I'd be a much better player,' that got me thinking, sort of hit me upside the head," Greenwood remarked.

He also said that there were many more issues than just those involved in reaching the decision: "The school evidently reached a point where it determined that it's sports programs and it's basketball program were not top priorities. I got very frustrated with the experience," said Greenwood. "I got tired of fighting with them, trying to reinvent the wheel. You know, they'd sign contracts for tournaments, make commitments to people, but when it came time to get the busses to get kids there, or pay the tournament fees, they'd say, 'We don't have the money, you'll have to do fundraising.' Well, we're talking about $300 or so dollars for busses or a tournament fee, not a lot of money. Verbum Dei is an Archdiocese school, and while they can spend $180 million dollars on a monument downtown, they couldn't find money for tournaments or busses? That didn't seem right to me."

"The administration never really seemed to understand what it takes to put together a top program," said Greenwood. "I mean I invested over $40,000.00 of my own money in the program, and did it gladly, buying weights for the weight room, uniforms, shoes, and other things because we weren't going to take sponsorship from shoe companies. But when it came down to it, the administration would just say, 'Let Greenwood pay for it,' and I got tired of that."

On a lighter subject, he was extremely proud of "his boys" as he called them, referring to the guys who played for his two, back-to-back State Championship teams at Verbum Dei these past two seasons. "Dalron and Marlon are doing great, and it's nice to see that they've cracked the starting lineups and will be playing. Those kids were just great," Greenwood said.

"You know, I feel bad for the current group of players, and even though I never really got to know a lot of them, I'm sure they'll be fine. They're great kids and they've got a new coach, and it was just time for me to move on," Greenwood said.