Canyon del Oro boy's golf coach John Farbarik retired this week after leading the Dorados for the past 10 years. Farbarik retired with a record of 1,037-314-4 from 2006-2015. Part of those 1,000 plus wins included two state championships and three runner-up finishes.

Farbarik rebuilt the program after a decade of average play (325-224-7) that resulted from the retirement of legendary coach John Ruiz in the early 1980s. Ruiz coached the Dorados to six state titles from 1974 to 1980.

In a statement, Farbarik wrote:

"After this Fall's golf season ended, I resigned as the CDO Boys Golf coach. As I move on to other challenges, I wanted to thank all of you for your support over the last ten years.  I am very proud of what we accomplished together.  In our ten years together (2006-2015), we raised money, added inexpensive off-season golf lessons and course access, increased participation, involved feeder schools, traveled to play more and better teams toughening up our schedule, added practices and a variety of golf courses, utilized assistant coaches and teaching professionals, improved our equipment and uniforms, advised on off season tournament schedules and simply worked hard to improve everything we could."

In a personal conversation a couple of days ago when Farbarik mentioned his pending retirement, he spoke of some of his best moments in coaching coming from working with boys who had little chance of winning but who had also put in a lot of hard work just to wear the Dorado uniform. To see those boys play a round of golf under the CDO banner and all that it has stood for was very rewarding for Farbarik.

Regaining the winning edge at Canyon del Oro required a change in culture.

"Did we need to add more and better uniforms, add logos to our golf balls and these other minor things?  I thought so," Farbarik wrote.  

"We wanted to establish a culture where excellence in everything mattered.  We could be happy, but not satisfied.  Champions always strive to get better.  We would not have success all the time, but if the coaching staff worked to improve everything in their control, maybe the players would take note and work hard to do the same.  Everything did not always work out and there were plenty of bumps along the way, but together we made a lot of progress."

Even with the gap before Farbarik took over, the Dorados have had a long history of accomplishment with nine state championships and ten individual medalists from former US Senator Mark Udall (1968) to current Stanford standout Chris Meyers (2014).

"I believe all involved with CDO Golf are better for the experience whether they are current college golfers, in the military or a golf coach looking for his next challenge," he added.

 "I know I am."