Saguaro hires Butch Goncharoff as new football coach

Saguaro High School has turned to one of its assistant coaches to take over as head football coach.

The Scottsdale Unified School District’s governing board on April 8 approved hiring Victor “Butch” Goncharoff as the next head football coach at the storied program. The district announced the hire in a news release that also announced Matthew Georgia as its new principal.

Georgia, who has been director of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support in the Phoenix Union High School District, will begin his duties July 1. Lisa Hirsch has been serving as interim principal this school year.

Goncharoff served as run-game coordinator for Darius Kelly last season at Saguaro. Kelly was fired after going 4-16 over two seasons.

“The Saguaro Football Program has a storied tradition filled with great coaches and great players,” Goncharoff said in the SUSD news release. “I am honored to be part of that tradition. I am excited about the upcoming season and cannot wait to get started.”

Goncharoff had a 206-15 career record coaching high school football in Washington state.

He coached the Bellevue High program in Seattle from 2000-16, winning 11 state titles and building a 193-14 record. Goncharoff coached the Bellevue team that ended California powerhouse De La Salle’s 151-game winning streak in 2004.

In 2016, he was placed on administrative leave by the school after an investigation found he and assistant coaches received unauthorized payments from a football booster club. The investigation also found the program violated player eligibility rules.

In 2017, he took over at Cedar Park Christian in Washington and later became running backs coach of the XFL Seattle Dragons in 2019.

Saguaro thought it had its next coach on Feb. 12, when it announced that Jason Ronquillo had been hired.

Ronquillo, who led Yelm High to a Washington state title in 2022, stepped down a month later. The Tacoma News Tribune reported that Ronquillo had resigned in late May 2025 from Yelm, stemming from an off-the-field, personal issue.

Goncharoff faces a huge undertaking to restore Saguaro’s past success as a dynasty as spring football begins in late April. Saguaro lost most of its starters after Zak Hill led the Sabercats to the 6A title during an injury-plagued 2023 season.

From 2006-23, Saguaro won 13 state football titles, including six straight from 2013 to 2018. But the dynasty started to unravel after Jason Mohns left for a job as an assistant coach at Arizona State, having led the Sabercats to the 2022 Open Division state championship game.

Hill left after one season. He was going to become the offensive coordinator at ALA Gilbert North, before he left Arizona to take on a role with the NFL Seattle Seahawks.

An exodus of players occurred after that, partly due to an internal email from then-principal Ann Achtziger to a handful of football coaches about music blaring from the football weight room that was disruptive to other students. In the email, Achtziger used a racial slur to describe lyrics that could be heard in the music.

After that email leaked on social media, there was backlash from parents. She apologized to the team, but 29 players, many of them starters, ended up transferring to other schools. Several assistant coaches also left.

Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. Catch the best high school sports coverage in the state. Sign up for Azcentral Preps Now. And be sure to subscribe to our daily sports newsletters so you don’t miss a thing. To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Saguaro hires Butch Goncharoff as football coach