C-M baseball coach resigns after 11 years

Spencer Patterson

Monday, May 13, 2002 | 9:18 a.m.

The only head baseball coach Cimarron-Memorial has known is calling it quits.

With his Spartans out of this year's prep playoffs, Calvin Valvo has announced his resignation after 11 seasons as the school. He will join the staff at Centennial next year, where he will serve as an assistant baseball and football coach.

"There are a lot of contributing factors, and the biggest one is my family," said Valvo, married with three daughters. "I've spent a lot of time coaching other people's kids, and I've missed a lot of time with mine."

With Valvo at the helm, Cimarron won at least 18 games in each of the last eight seasons, qualifying for the playoffs for seven straight years. Led by Sun Player of the Year Mike Esposito -- now a pitcher at Arizona State -- Valvo's 1999 team won the Southern Zone title, reaching the four-team 4A State Tournament.

This year's Spartans finished 20-13, tying with Centennial and Palo Verde atop the Northwest Division standings and going 1-2 in last week's 4A Sunset Region Tournament.

"I always used to measure success by how many state championships you won, but I remember the first summer we coached Legion here and we lost games 40-1 and 30-2," Valvo said. "I can take pride that when we play somebody now, they better have their A game or they're in trouble."

Before starting the baseball program at Cimarron, Valvo served as an assistant at both Eldorado and Valley, working under legendary coach Rodger Fairless with the Vikings.

"My style of coaching is a dinosaur, so it's time to step aside," Valvo said. "I want to hold people accountable, and people don't want to be accountable. It's frustrating not being able to coach the way I grew up coaching."

The 42-year-old Valvo said he is "99.9 percent sure" he won't take another head coaching position, though he added, "I don't know what might happen in five years."