Comments (3) Best Coach - 2009

Harry Welch

Don't listen to the naysayers who say the Tartans' 43-game winning streak—longest in OC prep football history—is a result of the tiny St. Margaret's Episcopal High School beating up on inferior competition. It takes a great coach to continue the San Juan Capistrano school's legacy of success, and that's what Harry Welch did in 2007, coming down from Canyon Country Canyon after beating mighty Concord De La Salle for the first CIF Division I championship and inheriting a program that, while strong, wasn't mentioned in the same breath as perennial powerhouses such as Los Alamitos and Mater Dei. That's now changing, especially since Welch is a strong advocate for small schools who rails against the big boys and their wink-wink approach to getting the best and most far-flung recruits. Best of all, he makes sure his Tartans are known as class acts on and off the field.