The Los Alamitos Area Chamber Commerce orchestrated a special networking luncheon for the month of April, hosted by Epson America, 3131 Katella Ave.
Los Alamitos High School Coach Ray Fenton, with more-than 30 years of high school coaching was the guest speaker on Team Building.
“This is a day of thanks,” said Chamber Chairperson Nesi Stewart, owner of PrintMasters of Los Alamitos. “We thank Epson for hosting our luncheon today and to Coach Fenton for being our speaker and for everyone in attendance.
Epson America President and Chief Executive Officer Keith Kratzberg thanked everyone from the City for the way the City has supported their company for and during their build-out at Epson. “It’s been a very positive experience with the City; thank you for the great job,” he said. “This has been a record year for us in the Americas as of March 31st and we have a great future.”
Fenton spoke of transforming 14-year-old students who join his sports teams at Los Alamitos High School. “It’s my responsibility to motivate kids and we have to find a way to do that; it’s high maintenance,” he said. “As a coach now days, we get to be transformational; not just teach a student to be a good player but a transformer of life and to be the best person in their life, teach them to serve their team members and to develop people; transform their lives.”
Fenton asked, “Is the student committed? We need to teach them to be committed and to be on time. We need to teach the kids what to do on the field and teach them how to do it.”
He continued that students need to respect everyone because everyone came from somewhere and in the same way, he said he can see what each person is about.
In order to have a working relationship together, it’s necessary to have trust in each other. “With an event, there is a response, an outcome and we need to build accountability; the student needs to first check-in and then warm-up with the team.
When one student didn’t do that in the proper order, he was sent to a regular Physical Ed class until he showed he could follow the rules before returning to Coach Fenton’s class.
The structure of a program is what makes great people.
“We need to teach them what they did wrong; relationships are extremely important; we expect coaches to make kids better people and I take that responsibility as extremely important.”
His high school coaching career began at River Valley High School in Mohave Valley, Arizona. After a successful run and completely turning around the Dust Devils program he headed for Las Vegas.
There, he opened a new school in the Henderson area by the name of Foothill; while at Foothill, he was able to lead the Falcons to become a top 10 team in the nation.
Also, at Foothill he won countless awards including the Nevada State Coach Of The Year. In addition to coaching, Fenton won the Heroism Award from the Clark County School District while showing great courage during a bus accident after a game.
At the peak of his success in Las Vegas, Cypress High School, his alma mater, happened to have a job opening and he saw that as an opportunity to come back home, accepting a job with the Cypress High School Centurions.
Moving back to California, he led the Centurions to a CIF championship in 2007.
Because of a budget crisis in the Anaheim Union High School District, Fenton left Cypress and found his way to Fountain Valley High School, coaching the Barons for three years before replacing the legendary John Barnes at Los Alamitos High School.
In only a short time with the Griffins he has led them to two Sunset League Titles and to the CIF Semi Finals.
