New Alhambra HC Chuck Leonardis
By Josh Ouellette
With Lou Torres leading the way two years ago Alhambra went 9-3 and made a trip into the quarterfinal round of the CIF playoffs. From that team 33 seniors returned and the Moors were expected to be one of the most dominant teams in the valley, regardless of a coaching change.
That didn’t happen.
Instead the Moors struggled, they changed their uniforms, they changed their offense and they lost what made Alhambra football one of the proudest programs in the area. The Blue and Gold lost their tradition.
Now there is one man who is looking to bring it all back to this historic Mid-Valley football team. His name is Chuck Leonardis and he gets it.
Leonardis has been in the area for most of his life. He played at Arcadia High School, Pasadena City College and then Western New Mexico University. He came back to the area and has coached at Monrovia, El Rancho, Cantwell Sacred Heart, Arcadia and most recently was the defensive coordinator at Hoover in Glendale.
Leonardis has the experience. He’s been coaching not only at the high school level, but his son’s pop warner team and even at the semi-pro level with the Hollywood Stars, where as the head coach he took the team to a conference championship last season.
But the most important thing that the new man at the helm of the Moors’ ship knows is that Alhambra high school thrives on its history and the traditions that have happened for over half a century. Leonardis knows that the team needs to get back to the hard hitting and blue-collar way of football.
“We’ve been there since January. We’ve had our morning lifting going since then and we just finished that up last week so that’s been good,” Leonardis said. “It’s been cool because we’ve had the kids coming in at 5:30 (in the morning) and it’s been a new experience for them because I’m the third head coach in there in the last three years, so for many of those seniors this is the third new style so its been a little tough for them.”
While for some of the players this has been a tough change, it also has been the way for Leonardis to build up his program the right way.
“We started with about 90-95 (in the programs) and were down to about 75. Some kids quit, some kids had behavior problems, some kids felt entitled to play there ‘Hey, coach I’ve been here and you haven’t,’ so we eliminated all the fat, we took that away.”
After going 4-6 last season, Alhambra players can’t say anything about any of the changes in routine that Leonardis is making.
“Whatever you guys did in the past didn’t work. Last year you guys won four games. If you guys were 10-0 I’d listen to you, but you guys weren’t and a lot of you were ineligible,” Leonardis remembered telling his players when he was hired. “So we were very honest with them and very upfront. We took roll everyday in zero period. Guys who didn’t show up owed me time after practice. It got to a point where hey if you missed three you were cut from the team, and we had to do it.”
The reception from the school has been very supportive as well.
“It’s been great. The administration has been great, the AD Jerry (DeSantis) has been great, teachers on campus have been great,” said Leonardis.
But what the new head coach is trying to build within his program is trust.
“Really what it was for us with most of the seniors was building their trust. With the freshman who are going to be sophomores and juniors to be, well we have time to build those relationships with them,” revealed Leonardis. “But with the seniors; some were ineligible last year, some didn’t like the coach, some don’t see eye to eye with the AD Jerry, we’ve tried to suck them in and say ‘look we’re going to trust you, you’ve just got to trust us.’”
Something Leonardis recognizes is the power and the history of Alhambra’s Moor Field has for the team, and he’s going to capitalize on it.
“We went down to Moor Field and practiced on a Friday during spring ball just to get that presence to let them know this is where you play, you don’t play on Fourth Street, this is your home field,” said Leonardis.
With his wife Gabby working in the area and being an Alhambra alumni herself, Leonardis has found that there is a long line of folks who are happy to talk about Moor football.
“All of the sudden when I got the job I started meeting all kinds of people who went to Alhambra telling me, ‘oh I played there, I played there,” said Leonardis. “So I started meeting people and getting to know people. The guy who runs the rotary club in Alhambra and I went to a meeting with him about CIF and I was able to talk to them about that, a guy on that panel played at Alhambra. I go to my son’s little league game and one of the grandfathers came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I played at Alhambra.’ So listening to them, hearing what their thoughts were, what their experiences were and bringing that all back to the high school football day now.”
With that being said, Leonardis does want to put his own spin on the program all the while keeping these stories in mind.
“Using that to kind of build everything and then putting our own flavor on it. We’re young coaches, we’re going to work hard, but were going to have a fun type of deal,” Leonardis said.
Leonardis wants to get the Moors back to fundamental football and knows exactly what his team’s bread and butter has been and will be in the future.
“It’s like this. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. A lot of what we’re doing is going back to the basics. We’re going play fundamental football,” Leonardis laid out on the table. “We’re lifting weights because you got to be big and strong. We have big lineman, so we’re going to run the ball. Alhambra football has been physical for years.”
The mentality of the Moors for decades has revolved around hard work and Leonardis knows what it takes to instill that into his players.
“Just old school blue-collar mentality. Work hard and put dedication in. Trying to get the kids to understand, you get out of it what you put into it,” Leonardis said.
Aside from the decade plus of experience that Leonardis has there is something else that helps him to have an edge as a coach.
“What really helps me is working here (at the Almansor Center). There are probably about 130 kids on this campus. They are the worst of the worst, not saying that in a bad way, but they’ve been kicked out of their school district, they’ve been kicked out of their continuation school, probably 25-percent have been in lock down facilities, there are house arrest kids,” Leonardis explained about the school he works at not far from Alhambra High. “So we get them here and you have a class of 15 or 20 kids like that for P.E., it’s got to be structured. It kind of helps me when I leave here and go over there (to Alhambra High) and I think, hey this is a piece of cake, it’s not hard at all. Players will come up and say I have this and this to do, and I’ve heard everything you can possibly imagine. So the kids from here have prepared me well.”
Most Moor fans and players will admit last year was a disappointment. Much of the blame has been placed on the changes former head coach Joe Kanach made. Coach Leonardis is ready to move on.
“Last year that guy (Kanach) had a lot of crazy ideas, let’s put it that way. He took out the tight end and the full back. A lot of kids were like woah, that’s what I play,” Leonardis put plainly. “I mean the kids don’t have anything negative to say about him. And I don’t talk about it. I told the kids, ‘Hey, let’s close that chapter of Alhambra football and move on.’ I think the brand of football he had didn’t work for Alhambra.”
Possibly the biggest point of tradition being lost was in the usage of a retired number. The jersey number of former football player and wrestler, Carey Couch, who passed away at a team meet in 1995 was worn last year under Kanach. This year when Alhambra takes on Arcadia at Moor Field on August 30th, the number will be re-retired before the game. Leonardis is bringing back the tradition in a major way right away in the right way.
When Leonardis was asked why he wanted to go to such extents to make sure this got done, his reply was simple.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” said the new Alhambra head coach.
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