‘Burned out’ Coe stepping away

Santaluces coach rebuilt program during his 4 years

After four seasons as the Santaluces head football coach, Brian Coe is stepping down, according to Coe and Santaluces athletic director Barry Cohen.

“My personal life had a tough 2020, and with all that being said, [I am] just burned out, just tired,” Coe said. “For all the hard work that these kids have done over the last four years, with the staff and the school and everything they’ve done over the last four years, I’d hate to see it go backwards because I’m burned out and don’t have the energy to do it.

“There’s nothing wrong, nothing like that. I just didn’t want to be that boxer that gets knocked out by the newcomer because you tried to stay in too long. [I] just didn’t have the energy to keep it at the level that these kids have worked so hard to establish.”

Coe, a longtime Palm Beach County football coach, took over a Santaluces team that went winless in 2016 and had a 5-25 record over the three previous seasons. In his first season as the Chiefs coach, Coe won a pair of games.

The 2018 and

2019 seasons were two of the Chiefs’ best seasons in years. Santaluces went 6-4 in 2018 — the program’s first winning season since

2013 — and then 7-3 with a playoff berth in 2019, which was the first time the Chiefs made the playoffs since

2009.

Coe was named the Sam Budnyk Palm Beach County Coach of the Year after the

2018 season. He was also the Sun Sentinel 2019 Palm Beach County large schools Coach of the Year.

“It was a good process,” Coe said. “I tried to explain to the kids, ‘Guys, people win state championships and they play football and they get streaks, but very rarely does a team or a program get a chance to build a program. Not many kids get a chance to take a program that was everybody’s homecoming and by their senior year become a reputable program in the county.’ ”

Coe went 18-17 in his four seasons with Santaluces following a 3-2 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Coe previously coached at Palm Beach Lakes, John I. Leonard and Summit Christian.

“He changed the atmosphere and ... encouraged the kids to do better academically,” Cohen said. “He brought in a teacher to help out with the students to achieve academics aside from just being successful on the field. He strived to make them better on the field and in the classroom, trying to groom them to be better men in society.”

Cohen said the school is advertising for a new coach now and will take applicants until about the end of the month.

Coe didn’t rule out returning to coaching sometime in the future.

“You never say never; it’s always a possibility,” Coe said. “Just for once in my adult life, I just — right now, selfishly speaking — needed to focus on myself for a minute. If it comes back up and an opportunity presents itself down the road, who knows?”

Coe