It was 10 years ago when Foothill head coach Vince Brown decided it was time to step away from the game. He retired after 17 years as head coach to step away from the game but he never, really been away from.
While his efforts were previously geared to coaching the Foothill varsity squad, it shifted to Little League where he took over as president of nearby Sunrise Little League, player agent, and also as an all-star coach.
It was all a part of him leaving the high school level to spend more time with his family.
Coaching varsity baseball was so time consuming. As his oldest son, Dillon, who was five-years-old at the time, took to the game of baseball, Brown was rarely present to see his games.
"I had seen him play three games that year in t-ball," Brown admitted.
Gallery: Foothill advances to CIF baseball final
It was tough for him to handle, especially considering the Little League field was right across the street from Foothill High School.
"I would try to have them give me a call when he was on-deck or in the hole," Brown said, "and I would jump on my ATV and drive as fast as I could across our field to run across the street and try to run into the Little League park until he got his at bat and once he got his at bat I'd run back and go back to practice. It just didn't seem like it was the right thing for a dad to do. It was time to be a dad and watch your kid play."
Brown tabbed assistant Gary Fishel to be his successor ... Brown needed to step away.
Fast forward to the conclusion of the 2013 season and an interesting twist of events when Fishel decided he wanted to spend more time with his family and didn't want the responsibility of being a head coach. He asked Brown, the athletic director, to return to his post as head coach.
After discussing it with his family, Brown decided he'd do it while Fishel remains on staff as an assistant.
Brown called others he coached with in the past to return, including pitching coach Iran Novick and hitting coach Dan Koosed, who spent the previous seven seasons as the hitting coach at Chapman College.
As a unit, they were able to get that old thing back and the results on the field spoke for themselves. One year removed from a last place finish in the Century League, the Knights, in Brown's first season following a 10-year absence, are in the CIF Finals.
Foothill (22-10) will take on Santa Margarita (19-10-1) on Friday at Dodger Stadium in the CIF Southern Section Division I championship.
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The game can be seen on PrepZone on FOXSportsWest.com at 8 p.m.
Click here for the full CIF-SS stream schedule on Prep Zone.
"It's like all I need to be is the director of the orchestra," said Brown, who's oldest son Dillon is now a sophomore infielder on the current Knights team. "Right now it's just a culture of confidence and they believe in their coaches and they believe in themselves. They have the ability to look at their teammates and say 'Hey, I trust you. I know you're committed. I know you love me and you respect me and you care about me and you're going to work hard for me,' and those things have all, sort of, come together."
It's been a magical ride for Brown and company in this not-so-ordinary last to first tale.
"We're living on house money, right now," Brown said.
