Carson, CA — For former Carson High School head football coach Frank Saldana, stepping away from coaching has not meant stepping away from the young athletes and athletic community he has spent years supporting.

Saldana is now channeling that connection into a new venture: the Carson Athletic Trailblazer, a digital publication created to spotlight Carson High School athletics, youth sports, coaches and athletic programs throughout the City of Carson.

The independent publication, produced through Carson Alumni Athletics, is not an official Carson High School or Los Angeles Unified School District newspaper. Instead, it is an alumni-driven effort spearheaded by Saldana to give Carson athletes and the people who support them greater recognition.

“I just took it upon myself to start the Carson Athletic Trailblazer,” Saldana said. “It’s just my way of staying involved in athletics, covering all our athletes at Carson High School, as well as in the community.”

The name carries a connection to Carson High School history.

For years, the school published The Trailblazer, its traditional student newspaper. Saldana recalled that the publication eventually stopped being regularly produced amid school budget cuts and changes in how people consume news.

Today, he sees digital media as an opportunity to revive a piece of that Trailblazer tradition while giving it a specific athletic focus.

“Most of our athletes and our kids — and college recruiters and people that are seeking information are using digital first,” Saldana said.

That shift helped inspire the Carson Athletic Trailblazer, which began publishing around the start of the current high school sports season.

While game results and athletic updates are part of the publication, Saldana’s vision extends beyond simply reporting who won or lost.

He wants to highlight the people and stories that have helped build Carson’s sports culture — including athletes whose experiences extend beyond their performances on the field or court, as well as longtime coaches and volunteers who have spent years investing in Carson youth.

“Maybe we got a coach who’s been coaching in the City of Carson Parks and Rec for 15, 20 years,” Saldana said, describing the type of story he hopes community members will bring to his attention.

Those are people whose service may be familiar to generations of Carson families but who have rarely received broader recognition.

Saldana is encouraging coaches, parents, alumni and community members to reach out when they know of those stories.

“If it makes sense, if it’s good, if it’s positive, we’ll do it,” he said.

The digital publication currently incorporates action photography from photographers who have covered Carson athletics for several years. Saldana also gathers information from existing sports coverage, including reporting from the Daily Breeze, with attribution to the original journalists.

As the Trailblazer develops, however, Saldana hopes to expand the amount of original storytelling surrounding Carson athletes.

One example is student athlete Sanaya King; a Carson athlete recently featured on the publication’s cover.

“She has an amazing story, not just athletically, but she has a story to tell,” Saldana said.

Those are precisely the stories he hopes the publication can increasingly tell — introducing readers not only to an athlete’s statistics or accomplishments, but to the young person behind them.

Saldana also sees potential for current Carson High School students to eventually contribute to the publication themselves.

When asked whether students could submit stories, photography, artwork or other material, his response was immediate.

“That’s the goal,” he said.

Students at Carson High are already gaining experience communicating about athletics through sports commissions connected to the school’s leadership programs. Students provide updates on scores, upcoming games, locations, homecoming activities and other events.

Saldana sees the Trailblazer as another possible outlet for that creativity.

Opening the publication to students could eventually expose young people to journalism, sports reporting, photography, graphic design, digital media and communications while allowing them to document what is happening within their own school community.

The Carson Athletic Trailblazer also has the potential to become something of a digital archive of Carson’s sports culture.

Carson High has generations of former athletes and coaches who remain closely connected to the school and community. At the same time, young athletes are creating new chapters in that history each season.

Saldana’s own connection to that legacy gives the project additional meaning.

As a former head football coach at Carson High, he understands firsthand the work that often happens outside of game nights — the practices, mentorship, family support, volunteer coaches and community programs that help young athletes develop.

The Trailblazer gives him a new way to remain involved.

Its coverage will not be limited to Carson High. Saldana hopes to highlight youth sports and Parks and Recreation programs throughout the city, including the individuals who have quietly devoted years to mentoring young people.

That approach could help connect the city’s youth sports programs with its high school programs while documenting the journey of athletes who begin competing in Carson as children and later represent the city at the high school, collegiate and potentially professional levels.

Saldana also welcomes greater involvement from local media organizations.

During his conversation with The Carson Compass, he encouraged additional coverage of Carson High athletics. “The more coverage, the better,” Saldana said.

That sentiment captures much of the philosophy behind the new publication.

For young athletes, coverage can mean more than seeing their name or photograph online. It can introduce their accomplishments to college programs, scholarship opportunities, community leaders and residents who otherwise may never know their stories.

For coaches and volunteers, it can recognize years of service that often happens without publicity.

And for alumni, the publication offers another way to remain connected to the school and athletic programs that shaped their own experiences.

The Carson Athletic Trailblazer is still in its earliest stages, but Saldana has a clear foundation for what he wants it to become: a platform that celebrates Carson athletes, recognizes those who invest in them and keeps generations of Trailblazers connected.

For a former coach accustomed to helping young people succeed from the sidelines, the role may be different.

The mission, however, remains much the same.