Crawford Named Cal-Hi Sports Small Schools Coach of the Year

Tom Crawford received a big honor for his work at small school Bishop Diego High School.

Cal-Hi Sports named Crawford the Coach of the Year in football for small schools in California.

In his 16th year as head coach of the Cardinals, Crawford led the team to a 10-0 regular season and a terrific playoff run. Despite playing in the much larger CIF Southern Section Northern Division, Bishop Diego knocked off Newbury Park and Palmdale to reach the semifinals before losing to Camarillo. All three of those schools’ enrollment size is a couple of thousand students while the Cardinals are under 250 kids.

This year marked the fifth straight year that Crawford’s Cardinals won at least 10 games.

Crawford is the first Santa Barbara-area head coach to win the small schools Coach of the Year since Coley Candaele in 2002 at Carpinteria.