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.”
This is a public display of complete ineptitude by the admin of the very high school we all went to. PLHS admin handled this horribly wrong when they could have set an example of mentorship and guidance.
The only thing they (the administration) can possibly do now is publicly apologize and offer the coaches their positions back.
I’ve known Billy since OB elementary school days. This unfortunate admin decision eats away at my “proud to be a Pointer” soul.
Shame on them.
I agree Cindy! To read this is so disheartening!
Seems to many of us that personally know and watched Billy, Chris, Steve and all the coaching staff work so hard to bring our Lady Pointers to great success. Sad day for PL. Maybe the administration should look inward at the harsh and abrupt decision to let the entire staff go without a hearing of some sorts or for them to present their side.
This looks like a crowd control problem, which requires special skills on the part of an official to do safely. I think it is unreasonable to expect a coach to have these skills, and to provide this control while also coaching the players, and that the administration may be remiss for not having adequate security at these events.
I know all three of the coaches pictured above. I went to PL with Billy and Chris and know Billy well. It’s unbelievable that it appears the principal would fire the coaching staff over an issue they had no control over. It sounds all too familiar: decisions being made from the top without open dialogue with, or meaningful input from, the very people those decisions affect. We see enough of that from our city leaders. We shouldn’t be seeing it in our schools, too!
Thank you for reading and responding to the story. I don’t live in OB but I have worked with grads of Point Loma High. All are always ready to tell me about the schools proud history, with a one hundred year track record of graduating good, educated people into the community.
When Vince Ghio (Coach Chris’s son) contacted the OBrag about what happened to his dad and his dad’s good friend I was asked by our editor to look into it. I wasn’t very enthused at first but as the investigation progressed I was dumbfounded by the callous disregard of these coaches by the school’s management. In her email to Coach where Turner chewed him out for his players using their home field for practice, I saw she sent copies of the accusations to a large group of people. I think this reflected a lack of confidence after serving only two years in her job, her attempt to impress the incoming principal and her embarrassment when attending the few games she went to in person; contests where parents and players got into loud disputes. This is not unique to Point Loma. In fact, a University of Maryland study shows its common at softball/baseball games I hope she will recognize the differences in the cultures of girls softball and sports like high school tennis, swimming or volleyball.
This staff deserves a public accounting and hopefully someone in the system has the courage to stand up for these coaches. jw
If I was checking a job reference I would not ask the person’s high school friends, I’d ask the people they were leading, i.e., the girls.
It’s unfathomable that you can have showed so many results, so much accolade, and be so willing to communicate and still get tossed away.
What more could admin want from these coaches ? They put their heart and soul into the girls and this school for barely any pay and this is the treatment ? Shame on Point Loma High.
The people who really lose out in the end are the young athletes, because there is no disputing this coaching team was an asset to their growth as players. Ridiculous
As a former player and longtime softball parent, I have observed that for some reason, girls softball always has problems with overzealous and aggressive parents who engage in sideline coaching, especially the dads who are protective of their daughters, but sometimes it’s the moms too. This problem exists not just at Point Loma HS but also at other schools and in youth leagues, and it’s more prevalent specifically in girls softball than boys baseball and other youth sports. It’s a phenomenon.
It is unfair to blame the coaches for the parents’ behavior! At the beginning of each season, the coaches review the “Parent Rules” with all of the parents and emphasize that sideline coaching is not allowed, among other things. Basically, the parents are not supposed to interfere with coaching efforts. Still, the coaches have no control over crazy grown-a** adults who think their daughter is the greatest athlete in the world and is going to an ivy league school on a softball scholarship. When PLHS became CIF champions, the stakes became even higher.
The administrators absolutely should have consulted the Athletic Director before making its rash decision to fire the whole HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL coaching team, and the administrators should have provided support, not criticism, to the coaching team having to deal with those crazy parents!
It’s their job to handle the parents. The fact that kids won a little title is completely irrelevant.
And NINE coaches?!?!?
Spoken like a jealous person. It’s the parents’ responsibility to behave themselves.
Varsity, junior varsity, and novice teams = lots of players to manage.
On three different teams. Varsity JV and freshman
The coaches have been alanbersined, control from the top down, fire at will.
This is tragic and unjust! Sounds like a horrible decision based on very little information. What remains the truth is that BILLY, Chris, Steve and staff have given everything. Their commitment, character, dedication and love for point Loma softball has made such a positive impact on Point Loma softball and the community.
Having attended many games over the last few years has been an incredible experience, watching the softball program turned into something quite enjoyable and successful.
I’m outraged with Point Loma high school admin for this poor decision-making.
I’m hoping we can get this decision overturned so that this program can get back on track.
This article gives mostly the coaches’ perspective, while the facts behind the decision remain unclear.
The girls’ experiences matter most, yet their voices are missing. If concerns about inappropriate or uncomfortable conduct were raised, the school may be unable to discuss them publicly.
Without the full story, it’s premature to assume the coaches were treated unjustly. Girls safety must come first.
I agree with Mark, This is Billy Hunyady, the former coach . The players experience is
what matters most. I’m sure through the years in the one hundred plus players that we coached there were players who weren’t big fans of one or more coaches. You try your best to connect with them all but you are not always successful. We had a dozen or so emails from former players that said they loved us and we would have loved to include them in the story but weren’t comfortable doing so without their permission.
The whole point of the article was that we aren’t exactly sure what we did that got us dismissed. the reasons they told us just don’t make sense. 7 of 9 coaches were alumni and love the school and the softball program and went above and beyond to try and make it wonderful. Did we succeed with all the athletes all the time ? Probably not, but we really tried, and there is a lot of evidence that both on and off the field that we did a great job and ultimately we were champs.
Unfortunately the New administration thought differently. For the record I’ve never met the new principal and only met the VP three times.
Thank you all for listening to our story, hopefully it helped you understand what happened. ( from our side :) ) I still love PLHS and the softball program, but I now love them with a broken heart
Yay, finally, the UT picked up the story (for their sports page)– and of course no mention or credit of the Rag or the reporter, JW August:
“Point Loma High School softball coach out following two best years in program history”