Canyon football hires new head coach

Canyon High School announced the hiring of Joseph Maiale as the new varsity football coach in a press release on Thursday afternoon.

Maiale said he was offered the position on Tuesday and accepted that very night.

“Canyon High School is a great opportunity,” Maiale said. “It’s a tremendous football league, a program with a lot of history.”

Maiale most recently was an offensive line coach at Oxnard, where he helped the Yellowjackets to a CIF-Southern Section Division 6 championship game last season. He’s also coached at Glendale, Harvard Westlake, Campbell Hall, St. Genevieve and Calabasas.

However, Canyon will be his first experience as a head coach.

“I’ve spoke with a lot of good head coaches and they offered their advice as to how to go about it and I’m excited. I’ve been around a long time, the opportunity is exciting,” Maiale said.

Maiale’s experience has led him to develop a detail-oriented coaching style and hopes to turn around a Cowboys football program that went 2-8 overall last season and winless in league. Canyon also competes in a CIF-SS division that he is very familiar with.

“I’ve seen at Division 6 what that top level looks like,” Maiale said. “You’ve got to work hard and do the little things right and we’ll get there. We’ll get better every day. It’ll take some time but we’ll get there. I’m excited and hopefully our boys enjoy playing the game.”

Maiale succeeds previous Canyon head coach Rich Gutierrez, who resigned on Oct. 30.

He is familiar with at least one member of the coaching staff – his brother, George, who joined the team last season.

Canyon will hold a “Meet the Coach” night on Dec. 17 at 6 p.m. in the Canyon performing arts center for football parents. Maiale will officially begin at Canyon as a coach and a special education teacher in the spring semester.

“Family is very important to me and I want Canyon football to be family,” he said. “I want that family atmosphere and I want everyone to be a part of something special because high school football is something special.”