Sonny Sudbury is planning on improving his golf game, and more importantly, spending more time with his family.

Sudbury can now take advantage of those opportunities because he resigned as Cyprus' head football coach on Monday. Sudbury, 65, coached the Pirates for nine seasons, and he has coached football for 41 years.

"I've been at it for a lot of years," said Sudbury, who added that the main reason for stepping down is to be around his wife, three kids and six grandkids more often. "It will be nice to get closer to them. And I can go out and be a (crappy) golfer."

Sudbury, a colorful character, closes out a career in which he enjoyed plenty of success. He coached at South Summit, Tooele, Bingham and Cyprus. His top accomplishments came at Bingham — as the Miners' baseball coach — as he led it to three state titles on the diamond.

Sudbury was the Miners' football coach for 15 years before stepping down at the end of the 1999 season. He took Bingham to the state semifinals that year before surprisingly resigning and taking the Cyprus job.

He went 10-0 in his first season with the Pirates, but Cyprus lost to Mountain Crest in the first round of the playoffs. He closed his career with another playoff defeat to the Mustangs, and he finished with a 45-52 overall record at Cyprus.

Sudbury, a Cyprus graduate, said he enjoyed his time coaching his alma mater. He also said he might be open to working as an assistant coach in the future, and that he will continue to teach at Cyprus.

"I enjoyed it," Sudbury said. "It was kind of a dream to come back and coach my alma mater. I enjoyed the coaches I worked with at Cyprus, and the administration has been really good to me. The Magna community has really been supportive of the program. You hear so many bad things about different places, but I've been treated really good."

---

E-mail: aaragon@desnews.com