Longtime Burbank High teacher and coach Hector Valencia is returning to be the head football coach once again.
The 1993 grad, who is a physical education teacher at the school, returns to the job he held from 2009 to 2014.
He replaces Adam Colman, who was his first quarterback when he was the head coach. Colman stepped down to spend more time with family, the same reason Valencia left as coach nearly a decade ago.
Burbank was highly successful under Valencia in his first stint with the program, going 37-20 and reaching the CIF Southern Section playoffs in four of those seasons.
His 2009 team won the Pacific League title, its first since 1972.
“I’ve done it before, so I know my timeline and what I have do in February, what I have to do in March. Now I can start moving forward with some of the things that I want to do,” Valencia said. “There’s a lot of good kids coming back. We’ve been hitting the weight room hard since the end of the season. I run the weight room as I am the weight training teacher. I’ve been with them since day one.”
This past season Valencia assisted as he was the running backs coach.
Now his son Kaylem is part of the Burbank football program, as he was the quarterback on the 9-1 junior varsity team.
“I’m very optimistic. A lot of stuff I already know. I know the way things are done at Burbank,” Valencia said of being an on-campus teacher. “If the kids need me, they can see me at lunch.”
