Mr. Benzel has been the head coach of football at Rocklin for nearly two decades. He has made the decision to resign from this position, as him and his wife move on to other adventures.

How many years were you head coach?

19 years.

What made you decide to step down from coaching?

Well it’s kind of a complicated answer. I guess I can characterize it by saying my wife and I have always been a ‘we’, not she and I or her and me, it is more of a ‘we’. So she very much embraced coaching when we got married twenty years ago. For 19 years she poured in and supported me in that role along with teaching here on campus. Then now we both feel that we are being led down this new season in our lives. Now it is us going on for more of some of the things that she wants to pursue politically at the national level which to me makes total sense and as much as I love football it is a part of me as an individual, this is something we want to do together and I am excited about and I want to help her and I can’t do both. So it wasn’t an easy decision, it kind of evolved over time.

Do you see yourself going back into football in the future or being involved with the team in any way?

Well it is hard to predict. A year ago I couldn’t predict me in this situation that I am in now. I would never rule it out. It is definitely possible. My thought process isn’t, ‘hey I’m going to come back to coaching.” My thought process is let’s move forward and do everything I can to meet our goals and vision for this campaign.

Who will be stepping into the head coach position?

The best thing that our administration can do is take somebody within our coaching staff. So that is Coach Adams or Coach Kenny. A combination of those two, whether that’s a co-head coach or one of them is going to take it and the other one supports because that would keep the continuity for the players and the families that are within the program. Any time you have a huge shake up it creates a bit of instability and we don’t want that.