By Beau Eastes / The Bulletin

Hoping to build upon its most successful football season in seven years, Bend's Summit High School has promoted Storm assistant coach Joe Padilla to head coach following the resignation of Jerry Hackenbruck.

Padilla, who is 37 and teaches science at Summit High, has been an assistant coach for the Storm for the past five seasons, the last two as defensive coordinator.

"It's exciting and at the same time overwhelming," Padilla said Friday after the announcement of his promotion. "I've been at Summit for five years and have seen the evolution of the program. It's been interesting, and it's something I think I can put a positive spin on."

A graduate of McMinnville High School, Padilla played football at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, graduating in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He later earned a Masters in Education from Portland State University. Before coming to Central Oregon, Padilla coached in the Portland area at La Salle, Clackamas and Rex Putnam high schools. At the start of the 2004-05 school year Padilla took a job at Bend's Mountain View High where he taught and coached for three years before moving to Summit at the beginning of the 2007-08 academic year.

During his last two years at Mountain View, Padilla served as the Cougars' head track and field coach.

With the Storm, Padilla takes over a team that went 5-5 overall in 2011, a substantial step forward for the program that went winless in 2009 and 2010.

"Good groups of athletes tend to come through Summit; our goal is to head them in the right direction once they're in high school," Padilla said. "There's a lot of excitement at the youth level on this side of town. ... We're working hard to do something similar to what Mountain View just did." (The Cougars won the 2011 Class 5A state title.)

Padilla will be the Storm's fourth head football coach since Summit opened during the 2001-02 school year. The Storm advanced to the state playoffs in 2003 and 2004 but have not been back to the postseason since.

"All schools have their challenges," said Padilla, who was at Mountain View when the Cougars ended a three-season football playoff absence and began a postseason streak that is now at six years. "It's just a matter of getting a group of kids who want to make a change.

"It takes a special class, and that can happen anywhere," Padilla added. "It can happen at Summit."

Padilla's hiring was the second such promotion at a Bend high school this week. On Wednesday, Bend High announced that assistant coach Matt Craven would be the new Lava Bear head football coach.

— Reporter: 541-383-0305, beaste/p>

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