Healdsburg High School Fires Head Football Coach

If you thought the recent 49ers coaching shuffle was dramatic, wait until you hear what’s going down at Healdsburg High School. The school’s head football coach, Randy Parmeter, has reportedly been fired after just one season. Although it was a rough season, with nine losses and one tie, it did feel a little less rough than seasons prior; in the words of the Press Democrat, our football team was “by many accounts was much more competitive and heading in the right direction” last fall. And there were high hopes for this year. In an email from Coach Parmeter posted to the “What’s Happening Healdsburg” Facebook group, he claims he was fired because he and some of the players on the high-school team had raised around $5,000 in hopes of reviving the “Healdsburg Bulldogs” flag football program for little kids in town — and when that fell through, he didn’t turn the fundraising check over to the high school fast enough. School officials “informed me that they were terminating my position as the football coach because they had not received the check,” he writes. “Additionally [Principal Francisco Manriquez] said that I was difficult to work with based on two conversations that we had together.” In one of those conversations, according to the fired coach, he was frustrated about the school’s handling of an “investigation” into his colleague Steve Zichichi — the high school’s former girls basketball coach, who was replaced by Jim Lago this season. (No idea what happened there!) And in the other conversation, Parmeter says he was frustrated about “the fact that none of the sports programs were going to have access to a weight training room for Summer workouts last year.” He writes: “For the past 10 years that I have been involved in this district I have noticed that kids don’t come first in decision making regarding sports.” And in an interview with the PD, he adds: “I think this problem stems from a higher position than just the administrators at the high school.” More from the story: “Parmeter was hired at Healdsburg last February as the school’s fourth head coach over the prior six seasons. He spent the last decade coaching around the county and helped revive El Molino’s program as head coach from 2013 to 2019. He’s also served as an assistant at Windsor, Cardinal Newman, St. Vincent and Cloverdale over his coaching career. Healdsburg has begun the search process for a new head coach.” (Source: Facebook Groups & Healdsburg Tribune & Press Democrat; paywall)