Rob Wigod played baseball at Blair Field in Long Beach as an eighth-grader at Will Rogers Junior High School.
He played there during his days at Long Beach Wilson High School.
Wigod was at Blair Field many times as a coach at Lakewood and Los Alamitos high schools, and as a baseball coach in Connie Mack and other offseason leagues.
“I’ve coached hundreds of games there,” Wigod said.
This is Wigod’s final school year as commissioner of the CIF Southern Section. The final event he will attend as commissioner will be the last of the CIF-SS baseball championship games played Saturday at Blair Field.
The memories are many, including when he was an assistant coach at Lakewood …
“I remember when Phil Nevin knocked over our catcher to score a run and knock out our catcher’s tooth when we lost to El Dorado in the semifinals at Blair in 1989,” Wigod recalled. “My last game as a high school coach was when we (Los Alamitos) lost to Capistrano Valley in the 2000 Division 1 semifinals at Blair.”
As usual during championship month, Wigod is a busy guy.
The week started when Wigod and assistant commissioner Rainer Wulf, also in his final year in the CIF-SS office as Wulf heads toward retirement, attended the sports banquet at Orangewood Academy. It’s a Seventh Day Adventist school that follows its religious doctrine of prohibiting athletic competition between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday.
Wigod and Wulf were thanked for working with Orangewood and other schools so that Orangewood students could participate in high school athletics.
On Friday, Wigod was at the CIF-SS softball finals in Irvine before heading over to Blair Field for baseball finals.
On Saturday he will be at the CIF-SS track and field championships at Moorpark High School before driving to Blair Field for more baseball finals.
And that last baseball final, the Division 5 game between Apple Valley and Peninsula, will be his final event as commissioner.
“It obviously quite a feeling to look back at all the events I’ve been part of,” Wigod said. “Some of the greatest memories I’ll have will be from these various championships, watching student-athletes pursue their dreams. I have a big smile on my face when I think about that.
“To have it end at Blair seems appropriate.”
Mike West, the new CIF-SS commissioner, will officially take office July 5.
