Encina High School hasn't been one of the more attractive coaching destinations, but Greg Roeszler thinks he is sitting on a gold mine.

"This is a homecoming for me," said the Bulldogs' new football coach. "We've got some good athletes walking around campus. Now it's just a matter of collaring them and getting them eligible."

The 1974 Encina graduate replaces John Powell, an off-campus coach who stepped down after three years to pursue an administrative credential.

Roeszler, 51, who quarterbacked at San Diego State and had a stint as a camp QB with the Raiders, also will be off-campus but already is spending a lot of time at the school.

He's started a 6:45 a.m. study hall three days a week and brings plenty of energy to a program that is in the midst of a 20-game losing streak and had to drop its JV program in midseason last fall because so many players either quit or became ineligible.

"The administration really wants to have a respectable athletic program," Roeszler said. "Their support has been great, and the teachers are getting behind us as far as helping with study skills. We've been at it a month, and we've already gotten a lot of traction."

Roeszler was the head coach at West Campus in 2005 and 2006 but stepped away before the 2007 season because of conflicts with a sales job that often took him to the Bay Area.

"I head down there first thing in the morning, go to places like Santa Rosa and Monterey and have to be back in Sacramento by 3 p.m. for practice," he said. "It was just crazy."

He has since resigned to devote full attention to an area mentoring program he founded five years ago called Playmakers. It offers free high school and youth football camps to schools and groups that can't afford them. As part of the payback, participating players agree to do volunteer work.

His organization has conducted camps for West Campus, Encina, Monterey Trail, Burbank and Christian Brothers, and it's an idea he hopes to take statewide.

It has given him a chance to escape the rat race and get back to his first love of coaching inner-city youth.

Encina athletic director Brian Mitchell is impressed.

"He's already gotten into the kids' lives with a lot of team-building stuff," Mitchell said.

Spartans set fund-raiser – The San Juan Booster Club will hold an alumni vs. boys varsity basketball fund-raising game March 14. A dinner will be held at 6 p.m., with the game to be played at 8.