By JW August / Special to the OB Rag
Billy Hunyady, a popular girls softball coach for nine years at Point Loma High School, has been fired by the school’s Associate Principal. Not only was Hunyady fired, but the entire girls’ softball coaching staff of nine individuals were abruptly fired on July 29.
A veteran coach with 28 years experience, Hunyady calls it an unjustified termination. More concerning to him, though, he says, is the potential for gossip and speculation in the community and among his players and their families wondering about why he was fired on at the end of July. He worries that some may believe he was fired for “horrible actions, such as a secret relationship with a player or stealing money or abusing any of the athletes in any kind of way,” Hunyady told the OB Rag.
Unfortunately those kinds of actions are not entirely uncommon, but that isn’t why Associate Principal Monika Montiel Turner fired him and the others, says Hunyady.
Hunyady said Turner told him he was let go because there was “too much chaos going on” surrounding the girls softball program, involving players and fans.
Although there were some warning signs, the firing still came as a devastating surprise to the Hunyady. Recognized as the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) coach of the year in 2025, Hunyady is a graduate of Point Loma High, class of 1981, having played on the same baseball team as the school’s famous sports alumnus, pitcher David Wells, of New York Yankees fame. “I was excited to be coaching teams from my school, ” Hunyady said.
Junior varsity head coach Chris Ghio, who was a longtime friend of Hunyady, having graduated the same year from Point Loma High as Hunyady, said that when his friend told him the entire coaching staff of nine individuals was fired, “I thought he was joking. They had seen many administrations come and go, and “we have always been treated with respect and appreciation.”
Ghio said he thinks the entire community should be put on notice that they were “disrespected and discarded” by the current administration.
Neither the brand new high school principal, Michael Santos, nor Turner have responded to numerous requests to tell us their side of the story.
James Canning, a spokesperson for the San Diego Unified School District did provide a statement for the OB Rag:
“This is a confidential personnel matter, which means we will not comment on the specifics of Mr. Hunyady’s employment. However, what I can share is individuals who hold the Walk-On Coach position, which is what Mr. Hunyady held, have no expectation of continuing employment, meaning they are not guaranteed employment each year. These are part-time, hourly positions in which individuals do not serve a probationary period and do not earn permanency or tenure. “
Hunyady and Ghio believe the firing was unjust and said they were never given an opportunity to respond before the decision was made. They said they are requesting a fair and impartial review of the circumstances.
The coaching staff, Hunyady said, was paid “between $1,200 and $3,800 a year for roughly 300 to 400 hours a year.”
Documentation of events leading up to the firing is contained in a series of emails from Turner to Hunyady, berating the team’s handling of a problem involving its home playing field, located down the hill at Correia Junior High School. All these communications were provided to the OB Rag by Hunyady.
One began with a letter from Merrill Amber, the building services supervisor from Correia, sent June 23. Amber wrote, “I saw a women’s softball group on the softball field. This was a surprise because I had not been informed there was a softball practice at Correia during any days of the summer break.”
On the very same day, the associate principal sent an email to “Coach Billy” calling the players’ use of the field an “unacceptable” oversight by the coaching staff that “the entire staff should be aware of.”
In Amber’s email the responsibility for the scheduling of the field was spelled out when the players were advised “to work with Manny to make reservations.” Manny is Manny Diaz, the athletic director at Point Loma High. He was on vacation but nevertheless Turner blamed the girls softball team coaches for an action that she said threatened the schools agreement to use the field.
Hunyady offered a defense, noting that “school was out and they (the players) went on their own.” He said the students told him, “the gate was open. Our season had ended and I don’t use the field until the next season.”
Ghio said he recalls that “none of the coaches were aware that any players were accessing the field during the summertime.”
Hunyady said that Diaz later told him that as a matter of practice the principal doesn’t deal with coaches, that’s his job. Hunyady says Diaz also told him that “he should have dealt with us but the associate principal stepped over him.” We tried to confirm this with Diaz but he has not responded to numerous attempts to speak to him.
Hunyady said Turner explained the firing with other examples of what she described as the ineptitude of him and the coaching staff. She told him he failed as the “CEO of the girls softball team”and that “the softball team was an embarrassment to the school.” Hyundah say he believes “the Correia incident was the last straw” for Turner.
One of the incidents she cited, said Hunyady, involved a father volunteer who attended and scored the game in real time on an app called “Game Changer.” Hyundah was told by those in attendance the father of a player was incensed because he felt the volunteer had made a scoring mistake involving his daughter. He confronted the score keeper after the game and it led to a heated argument. Physical threats were made and they had to be separated, Hunyady said. Turner was at the game, which both coaches said was a rarity. She banned both parents from the field for 30 days, Hunyady said.
Turner also attended the final game of the year against Mater Dei where two more incidents occurred that the coaches were held accountable for. Like all these incidents, none were seen by Hunyady, as he was busy on the field. The angry father from the scoring incident was allowed to return where he tried to instruct his daughter on her play; she responded angrily to him, loudly telling him to leave her alone so she could focus. At the same game, a player who made an error late in the contest was distraught because she thought a teammate was blaming her. Her parents went to confront the player and it ended in a loud argument. Hunyady said Turner told him that it showed he lost all control of the game.
Parents fighting at youth games is so common researchers gave it a name: “sideline rage.” It’s especially well documented in baseball/softball. University of Maryland researchers found the same emotions that cause road rage cause ‘sideline rage’. It involves the belief that something in the game is unfair or personally threatening to the parent or to their child.
Hunyady said on another occasion, Turner told him he was responsible for a student who skipped school but turned up for game practice. Hunyady is not aware of any discipline the school took but when he found out, he sat the player out at the next game
The coach admits the last year has been “kind of crazy,” in part, because of the excitement behind the success of the girls’ team. The players won the school’s first CIF San Diego Section softball championship, its first CIF state softball championship during the school’s centennial year in 2025, and a trip to the CIF Open Division Championship game in 2026. He said this had never happened before in the history of the school’s girls softball team, which came into existence in 1972 with the passage of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Hunyady takes solace, he says, from former players, fans of the team and the school’s former principal, David Jaffe. He responded to a letter from Hunyady who thanked Jaffe and the staff for their support of the girls softball program. Jaffe, who was a principal at four different schools in his 24 years of executive work wrote, “You should celebrate what you accomplished because it meant something to a whole lot of girls and their families. Ending something you love is not easy regardless of how the exit takes place.”
