PLEASANT HILL — Five months after he was surprisingly let go by Miramonte, the school he led to its first North Coast Section title since 2013 last fall, Jack Schram has a new job.
Schram has been hired as the head coach at College Park, he confirmed to the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday night.
The 61-year-old Schram will be College Park’s fourth head coach in five years. He replaces Casey Moreno, who led the Pleasant Hill school to a 4-6 record in his only season with the program. Moreno was recently hired to be the head coach at St. Mary’s-Berkeley, which had a vacancy after John Trotman left to become the head coach at Castro Valley.
For Schram, his new school is only 20 minutes from his previous one.
“I’m excited to see the number of players that are going to come out and play,” Schram said. “I’ve kind of always coached at the smallest schools for a long time. To now be in a place with over 2,000 students, I’m trying to get the numbers up and compete. I’m looking forward to that.”
When Schram was dismissed from Miramonte in December, the school’s athletic director, Sean Hennessy, said the administration ultimately just wanted to go in a different direction.
“There was no one thing at all or anything that I could point to,” Hennessey told the Lamorinda Weekly at the time. “It was just that we felt it was time for a change in leadership. We are always getting feedback from the parents and players for all our programs, not just football, and like I said, it was just one of those things where we felt it was time for a new direction within the program.”
Schram told the Bay Area News Group he still hasn’t gotten closure about why he was removed, but thinks the administration wanted to hire someone younger.
Miramonte also dismissed its boys basketball coach, Chris Lavdiotis, in February despite the Matadors reaching the NCS playoffs. Lavdiotis was hired this month as the new head coach at San Marin in the North Bay.
Schram said about his own situation, “It was ultimately the principal’s decision. He did the same thing with the basketball coach. We’re both kind of older and getting up there in years. He probably wanted to bring in younger guys that he could relate to.”
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Given another opportunity at College Park, Schram will take over a program that last made the section playoffs as recently as 2022, but haven’t found consistent success.
“I think the initial goal for this season is to go out and win league,” Schram said. “We would then get an automatic berth into the section playoffs. In the playoffs anything can happen … we can do ourselves a favor by winning league and getting to the playoffs.”