Tracy High’s Mark Stroup, shown coaching the Bulldogs last fall, has stepped down as athletic director to pursue a full-time career as a financial planner. Press file photo
Stroup said Thursday, June 3, that he turned in his resignation on the last day of school last week so he could make a career change to financial planning, a profession he has been involved with for the past several years while coaching and teaching economics at Tracy High.
Stroup, 42, is a 1986 graduate of Tracy High and returned two years later to coach basketball. He became an assistant coach at West High working with Steve Lopez, his former football coach and math teacher, when that school started its football program in 1993. He took on the Tracy High athletic director job in 1999 and started as head coach for the Bulldog varsity football team the following year. Stroup resigned as head coach of the Tracy High varsity football team at the end of the 2009 season.
He said he’s been involved in financial planning part time for the past five or six years, and he has decided to make the change to a career as a full-time financial planner. He added that while he’s enthusiastic about a new career, it was also an emotional decision to leave Tracy High.
“I’ve got a lot of time and energy and sweat and tears invested in the school,” he said. “It’s tough. I’m leaving a lot of good people and a lot of good memories.”
His last season as Bulldog coach was Tracy High’s first 10-0 regular season since 1986, the fall after Stroup graduated. The Bulldogs fell 28-27 to Los Banos in the second round of the 2009 Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs to end the season at 11-1.
He plans to work out of the Stockton office of Waddell & Reed Financial Advisors and said that, as his own children are coming up through Tracy High’s athletic programs, he will continue to be involved with Bulldog sports.
Matt Shrout replaced Stroup as head coach of the football team. The Tracy Unified School District has not said when it intends to hire a new athletic director for Tracy High.
• Contact Bob Brownne at 830-4227 or brownne@tracypress.com.
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