If you’ve attended a Sedona-Oak Creek School District sporting event in recent years, you’ve probably seen Pedro Ortega there. He serves as head coach for three different teams at Sedona Red Rock Jr/Sr High School and is often supporting other teams as a spectator. Going forward, he’ll also be at those games in another capacity, as the SOCSD athletic director.
Ortega is taking over for Don Burton, who has taken a job coaching basketball at a high school outside of Tampa after serving as the district athletic director for over two years. Ortega said he is “very humbled and grateful” for the new position.
“I appreciate this wonderful opportunity and all the opportunities that I have been given over the years to serve the Sedona school system and community,” he added.
The opportunity does come with some challenges. The big one is to reverse the trend of dwindling numbers. Ortega has some ideas about what can be done to increase the number of players.
One is to build more of an athletic program at the younger level, especially fifth and sixth grade. That will increase the numbers and production of the seventh and eighth grade teams and eventually the high school teams, as well.
Another area that Ortega is looking to is community involvement. As someone who’s been in Sedona for 30 years, he’s made a lot of connections in town and hopes to use those connections to enhance the athletic program.
“Building the program is the No. 1 key,” Ortega said. “I’m hoping that we can build up more of a relationship with the community. I think it’s a big part of athletics and academics to have their support. Hopefully we can engage them and make a difference.
“We are a small community and we’ve got to help each other. I’m hoping we can have good communication with the community and we can build up whatever we had lost, if it’s anything, build up or pick it up from where we had it, move forward and make it exciting for the kids to join any sport.”
One key issue for Ortega is going to be what to do with the SRRHS football program. In May of 2020, the SOCSD board unanimously voted to suspend the school’s football program. The Scorpions had suffered through four straight losing seasons on the gridiron, with most of the losses being lopsided. Numbers continued to be more of an issue. As the football season came to a close in the fall of 2019, the Scorpions frequently fielded teams with fewer than 20 players.
Ortega knows that the number of players needs to be increased. But he’s also hopeful that the program can be revived for the 2021-22 school year.
“We’re going to review that again and see what the numbers are,” Ortega said. “It’s possible. Even an eight-man. It seemed like you kind of took a lot out of the town when you took football out. A lot of the parents I talked to, their kids were kind of deflated. It’s been in Sedona history for a long, long time — football on Friday nights. Can it happen? It remains to be seen. We lost some of that when we lost our youth programs.”
While there are some challenges that Ortega faces as athletic director, he won’t be facing them alone. One of the things Burton was proudest of was getting solid coaches in place for all of the teams. Ortega is confident that Burton’s optimism in that regard was well founded.
“I trust him that he put all of the right coaches in place with their backgrounds and they’re doing it for the right reasons,” Ortega said.
One of the coaches in place is Ortega himself. He’s presently coaching the Sedona Red Rock Junior High School volleyball team. In the winter, he’ll be the head basketball coach for the SRRHS boys team. He had previously worked as the head coach for the junior high boys. In the spring, Ortega will coach the high school baseball team again.
Sports have long been a big part of Ortega’s life. He joked that he enjoys attending games recreationally in the same way that other people go to bars. He hopes that his enthusiasm will be passed on to the kids at the school and it will help serve them in other areas.
“To me as a coach my philosophy is to motivate them with the sport,” he said. “If you give them the sport you force them to do academics better. It’s what I’ve done in the past. If sports are good enough for them, they will make the effort to make the grades to be there. Because it’s a great experience.”
