Ridgeview High School’s first athletic teams are still months away from taking the field, but the new Redmond school scored big earlier this month with the announcement of five head coaching hires.

Redmond High athletic director Brent Walsh — who currently is serving as district athletic director for both Redmond high schools — has confirmed that Ridgeview, which will open its doors this fall, has hired head varsity coaches for five of its athletic programs.

Andy Codding (football), Lisa Pom-Arleau (volleyball), John Albrecht (track and field), Randi Davis (girls basketball) and Vicki Sime (girls golf) will all have the rare opportunity to build high school programs from scratch.

“It was a really hard decision,” says Pom-Arleau, who has been the head coach at Redmond High the past six seasons. “But this is a fabulous opportunity to start a program from the ground up and I wanted to be part of it.”

Albrecht, an assistant coach with the Redmond High track and field team, earned the chance to start up the Ravens’ track program.

“I’m really excited and encouraged that there’s so many more kids that will have the courage to participate,” says Albrecht, a counselor at Redmond High who will move to a similar position at Ridgeview. “Sometimes kids are a little intimidated when they go to a big school about going out for sports. … I’m really looking forward to that smaller-school mentality.”

Codding, who is currently the dean of students at Redmond High, will guide the Ravens’ football program. A longtime assistant coach in the Eugene area, Codding was the head coach at The Dalles Wahtonka from 2008 to 2010 before moving to Redmond this summer. In The Dalles, he took over an Eagle Indian program that had gone 7-21 in the three seasons prior to his arrival and turned it into a state playoff team in just two years.

The Dalles Wahtonka went 1-9 in Codding’s first season but was one of the most improved programs in the state in 2009, when the Eagle Indians went 8-3 and advanced to the second round of the Class 5A state playoffs. In his final season with TDW, the Eagle Indians went 6-4, won the Columbia River Conference and again qualified for the state postseason. Last fall, Codding assisted with the Redmond High football program.

Davis, a girls basketball assistant at Redmond High, will lead Ridgeview’s girls basketball program, and Vicki Sime, who is currently Redmond’s girls golf coach, has been hired to take the same position at Ridgeview.