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SAN JOSE — After Branham’s boys volleyball team was eliminated from the section playoffs on Thursday night, coach Heather Cooper broke her silence.

The woman who lost her bookkeeping job last fall addressed the cloud that began with her removal and reached another level of darkness this spring when athletic director Landon Jacobs was dismissed, too.

“No matter what happens, I will continue to fight because I’m innocent,” said Cooper, who after a leave of absence returned to coach the boys and girls teams. “I feel like my character and my love for Branham is being tarnished and it’s hurtful.”

Neither the school district, nor Cooper or Jacobs has publicly revealed any details about why the personnel moves were made in the athletic department.

But a 12-page formal complaint filed last month to the district office by supporters of the popular athletic administrators revealed that Jacobs and Cooper were accused of misappropriation of Associated Student Body funds and not following financial policies after a district audit for the 2022-23 school year.

While Cooper called herself a “clerical assistant to the athletic department” in a Friday text message and is listed on the Central Coast Section’s website as an “AD Assistant”, the district said her official title was as the associated student body bookkeeper.

The complaint called for the reinstatement of Jacobs and Cooper and the removal of principal Lindsay Schubert, who according to the complaint fostered a culture that does not support high school athletics.

Schubert has accepted a job as an assistant principal at Los Gatos High effective July 1, the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District announced at its board meeting this week.

Emails to Schubert and Campbell Union High School District superintendent Robert Bravo on Friday were not immediately returned.

According to sources close to the situation, Cooper’s removal stems from a check reimbursement form that she submitted to the school administration.

“I have absolutely nothing to hide in any of this,” Cooper said. “I have been honest from the beginning. I made an honest mistake. I was more than willing to fix it if I was given that opportunity, and unfortunately I wasn’t.”

After Cooper lost her job in the athletic department, she briefly left the team but returned before the season ended. Her team had won Central Coast Section titles the previous two seasons.

Even with the uncertainty, Cooper led Branham’s girls team to the CCS Division I semifinals last fall and did the same for the boys team this spring.

“These teams have been giving me that bright light that I’ve needed for the past 10 months,” Cooper said. “I think that what kills me the most is that the seasons have come to an end.”

Her absence from the girls program stunned the Branham community.

“This was a team that was trying to three-peat as CCS champions and a week into the season, our coach was gone,” a source close to the program told the Bay Area News Group. “Multiple parents reached out to get answers and we didn’t get any. … The only form of communication came after the fact and we were told in an email from the principal to not ask any evasive questions about the coach’s situation.”

Months after Cooper’s ouster from the athletic department, Jacobs was let go, sparking outrage among supporters that led to a change.org petition that has more than 1,500 signatures.

In interviews with the Bay Area News Group, Jacobs said he was told that his removal in March was based on performance. He has declined to provide any more clarity.

Jacobs had been in charge of the school’s athletic department for 14 years, leading it to eight CCS and 57 league championships.

Cooper attended her first hearing on the matter last week in an attempt to defend herself in front of the board. Sources in attendance said little progress was made and discussions will continue at a future hearing.

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In spite of all that has happened, Cooper said she hopes she will be allowed to return to Branham next school year at least in her coaching capacity.

She said the past few months have been difficult and taken a toll on her mental health.

“For the past 18 years, I’ve been putting my blood, sweat and tears into the Branham community,” Cooper said. “I’ve tried to make a difference not only on the court, but on campus. I’m 1,000% there for the students and that’s why I want to continue to be here. We’ve had a great atmosphere with the culture at Branham High School as a family and that’s what I know the school as, and unfortunately, not being there is different.”

Cooper found solace in coaching this past year, but said she is unsure about her future at Branham.

Cooper said she has leaned on Jacobs throughout the saga and is hoping that they will be back in their previous roles in the athletic department when the matter is resolved.

“Our goal is to be there for the student-athletes and that’s how it should be,” she said. “That’s what we created for the athletic department. It’s about our student-athletes and how we can make them better versions of themselves on and off the court and the field. We are just gonna stay strong and pray that we’re back next year.”

SAN FRANCISCO — An ill-timed shave meant Casey Schmitt arrived in the heavily mustachioed home clubhouse at Oracle Park lacking the facial hair to match most of his teammates. It was another recent addition to his face that could be more meaningful.

“The prescription is, like, minus-7.5, I think it is,” Schmitt said, turning to his locker and grabbing a packet of disposable contact lenses. “It’s not very significant. Just enough to kind of (help) at night. It was getting a little chippy.”

Getting the start at shortstop Friday night with Nick Ahmed (wrist) placed on the 10-day injured list, the change for Schmitt should be invisible to the viewing public but could make all the difference at the plate, where he struggled to keep up with major-league pitching toward the tail end of his rookie year.

“I wasn’t really seeing spin,” Schmitt said. “Now, I’m able to see it a lot better.”

Schmitt’s teammate, Blake Sabol, plays with eyeglasses and the 25-year-old infielder said he considered taking measures to correct his vision but it wasn’t until about two weeks into the season that he visited an eye doctor and was prescribed contact lenses for his mild nearsightedness.

“I was fine with how it was,” Schmitt said, “but I wanted that extra thing to help me out even more.”

In 33 games with Triple-A Sacramento, Schmitt was batting .276 with five home runs, six doubles and a .768 OPS with 10 walks to 32 strikeouts. What effect his new eyewear will have remains to be seen — he started heating up with a two-homer game on April 14 — but his production put him in line to get the call when a need arose at the big-league level.

With Ahmed, the Giants’ starting shortstop, set to miss at least the next week and a half with a sprained wrist he aggravated Thursday in Colorado, the Giants opted for Schmitt, 25, over Marco Luciano, so that they could “let Luci continue to play on an everyday basis,” manager Bob Melvin said.

Schmitt had been playing all over the infield for the River Cats, mostly ceding shortstop to Luciano except once or so a week, and offers Melvin more positional flexibility in the interim.

Ahmed will be eligible to return next Sunday, but Melvin indicated he might require a longer absence. He was struck by a line drive while playing defense in Philadelphia, then aggravated the injury on a swing Thursday in Colorado and was lifted from the game.

“He’d been dealing with a little bit of soreness day to day with it, but it was that swing that put it over the top,” Melvin said. “There’s going to be a period of time where he doesn’t do anything, and then ramp back up. It could be a couple weeks.”

More immediately, catcher Patrick Bailey is “on target” to be activated from concussion protocol when he is eligible Saturday, Melvin said.

Schmitt’s contact lenses weren’t the only new cranial accessory in the clubhouse.

After suffering two concussions in the span of seven months, Bailey decided to switch up catchers masks, trading in his traditional two-piece model that strapped over a protective helmet for a hockey-style mask with “enforced padding,” according to Melvin.

“So it’s supposedly a little bit safer,” the manager, a former catcher, said.

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Bailey was on the receiving end of approximately 30 pitches from Blake Snell, providing the Giants a two-for-one of positive health developments.

The next step for Snell, after his bullpen session “looked really good,” according to Melvin, will be a rehab outing Sunday with Single-A San Jose.

“There was just a crispness to it that we weren’t seeing before,” Melvin said of Snell’s pregame bullpen. “The velo was way better in the bullpen as well. He looked more balanced. The breaking ball was sharper. It was pretty encouraging.”

Notable

— OF Jung Hoo Lee (toe) was held out of the lineup for a second consecutive game but was “better today than he was yesterday,” Melvin said. Austin Slater started in place of the rookie center fielder, who fouled a pitch off his toe Wednesday in Colorado.

The streamer would have its first event from a major professional sports league as it makes a push into TV's advertising market.

Sean Burroughs, a celebrated baseball standout who led the Long Beach All-Stars to back-to-back Little League World Series titles and played seven seasons in the major leagues, died Thursday. He was 43 years old.

Long Beach Little League president Doug Wittman confirmed Burroughs’ death. The cause of death was cardiac arrest, Burroughs’ mother, Debbie, said in a text message to the Southern California News Group.

According to Wittman, Burroughs was found unconscious next to his car in the parking lot at Stearns Champions Park in Long Beach after he dropped off his 6-year-old son, Knox, for a Little League game. CPR was administered and Burroughs was not responsive. Long Beach Fire Department personnel arrived in response to 911 calls, but Burroughs was pronounced dead at the scene.

“It was very shocking,” Wittman said. “It’s a real sense of family at Long Beach Little League. So when we lose one of our own, it hurts.”

Long Beach Little League announced Burroughs’ death earlier Friday in a statement posted on Instagram.

Long Beach Little League posted this announcement on Instagram to confirm the death of coach and former baseball star Sean Burroughs on Thursday. 

Burroughs was an assistant coach for his son’s team. When he did not arrive in time for the start of the game, others became concerned and went searching for him, which is when he was found.

Burroughs was one of the most decorated amateur baseball players in history before going on to his major league career. The son of 1974 American League Most Valuable Player Jeff Burroughs, Sean starred as a pitcher and hitter on the Long Beach teams that won consecutive Little League World Series in 1992 and 1993. He threw back-to-back no-hitters in the LLWS as a 12-year-old and appeared on “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Long Beach All-Star Sean Burroughs celebrates at end of 1993 Little League World Series championship game. (File photo) 

He continued to star at Long Beach Wilson High and was drafted ninth overall by the San Diego Padres in 1998. He won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the USA Baseball National Team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and made his major league debut with the Padres in 2002.

Burroughs hit .282 but had just 11 home runs in four seasons as the Padres starting third baseman before being traded to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2006. He hit just .190 in eight games for Tampa Bay before being released.

He played four games with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in 2007 before leaving baseball.

In a 2011 interview with ESPN’s Jim Caple, Burroughs said that he struggled with alcohol and drug abuse during his final seasons.

“I was hanging out with some bad people and had done some bad things,” Burroughs told ESPN. “That was more important my last couple of years playing ball, and the last few years.

“I was kind of like a garbage can,” he added. “Whatever I had or needed, I would find and take it. I wasn’t an out-of-town type of guy. Whatever I had or needed, I would find and take it. I would just try and fill myself with as much substances as I could, legally or illegally.”

After living in Las Vegas for three years, Burroughs got clean and made a return to the major leagues. He appeared in 78 games for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011 and 10 games with the Minnesota Twins in 2012. He played 53 games for the Dodgers Double-A affiliate in Chattanooga in 2013 and finished his career playing in the independent Atlantic League from 2014-17.

Following his playing career, Burroughs obtained his EMT license in 2018 and began working as a security supervisor for Allied Universal, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He was also active in coaching his son in Long Beach Little League, the same league he made famous 30 years earlier.

“He was a Long Beach legend,” Wittman said. “… I’ve had the privilege to coach with him the last couple years, our kids being on the same team, and the guy was just a joy to be around. Always smiling, very positive. (He) put a fresh look on youth sports. Just keeps it fun for the kids. In a world where youth sports is very, very competitive, he brings a better spin to and keeps it real fresh and real loose for the kids, which was fantastic.”

Burroughs is survived by son Knox, mother Debbie and father Jeff.

Sean Burroughs, with his son at Stearns Park in Long Beach on Thursday, August 24, 2023. (Photo by Brittany M. Solo, Press-Telegram/SCNG) 

Sean Burroughs, a former MLB player who pitched back-to-back no-hitters in the Little League World Series for Long Beach in the early 90s, dies at age 43.

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