Leaf got 'em ready for the varsity for many years

One thing that kept Craig Leaf coming back to coach the freshman football team at Coeur d’Alene High all these years was, he was there to teach the ninth-graders more than just the game of football.

“We’ve always had that motto — I tell them you’re going to be responsible, they’re going to be accountable, and they’re going to be a good citizen, and the football will take care of itself,” Leaf said the other day.

An example ...

“This year we went to Yakima to play, and I don’t bring extra stuff, because that’s not going to teach them to be responsible,” Leaf recalled. “I have a starter ... he says, ‘I don’t have my game pants.’

“What do you want me to do? I have my pants on. How could you forget them?

“He says, ‘My mom ...

“And I stopped him. I said, ‘Is your mom playing today?”

‘No.’

“Well then, your mom’s not responsible for your pants.”

Leaf noticed the player was wearing his blue Viking gym shorts, had his girdle and all his padding. He just didn’t have his game pants. So, legally, he could still play.

“I want you to go out and tell the referee that you forgot your pants, and that’s why you’re wearing your gym shorts,” Leaf told the player.

“And he said, ‘Well, I’ll have to think about that.’

The player eventually explained what happened to the referee, and he played in the game.

“But he’s never forgot his pants again,” Leaf noted.

AT AGE 62, Leaf’s work at Coeur d’Alene High will be done soon — for now. He resigned as Viking freshman football coach — a job he held for 24 years — at the end of this past season. And he plans to retire as a teacher at CHS when the school year ends.

He’s in his 40th year as a teacher — the first 13 years in California. He’s taught mostly P.E., and these days he teaches a life sports class. And he’s also been a coach for most of those four decades.

He will be missed, said Shawn Amos, who has been the Vikings’ varsity head coach for the past 22 seasons.

“It has been a huge advantage for our program to have a stable coaching staff at the freshmen level and that is all led by coach Leaf,” Amos said. “He does a great job at setting expectations and helping the players understand that there is a big step once you get to high school football. Over the years he has had an impact in many programs at CHS, and we truly appreciate all he has done for Viking football.”

LEAF AND his wife, Jan, moved to Coeur d’Alene in 1992.

In addition to coaching freshman football, he also coached baseball at Coeur d’Alene High for 13 seasons — 11 as a varsity assistant. He also coached basketball for nine years (at the varsity, JV and freshman level).

This will be his eighth season as an assistant golf coach.

And he also was an assistant softball coach for one season at Coeur d’Alene in the mid-1990s, when high school softball in Idaho was making the transition from slowpitch to fastpitch. Leaf had coached fastpitch in California.

Before moving to Idaho, Leaf was a varsity football assistant, a freshman soccer coach and varsity softball coach at his alma mater, San Marin High in Novato, Calif., just north of San Francisco. He played football, basketball and baseball in high school, attended the University of Nevada for one year, and graduated from Chico State.

But he said he tired of receiving the annual “RIF” (Reduction in Force) notice — where teachers were laid off in April and, if things worked out, rehired just before the next school year.

“We came up here (to Idaho) to visit and my wife said, ‘You better find a job, because we’re moving here next year,’” Leaf said.

So he did.

He taught P.E. at Winton and Sorensen elementaries for two years, then moved up to Coeur d’Alene High School in 1994.

LEAF’S FIRST season as freshman football coach, the Viking varsity coach was Greg Drake.

Amos took over the varsity program a couple years later.

“He said, ‘You can go wherever you want.’ I said, ‘I’ll stay right where I’m at.’ He said “That’s good. You’re getting them ready for me.’”

Why keep coaching freshmen?

“I loved the level,” Leaf said. “I liked the teaching aspects of it, and laying down a foundation for these kids. And when Shawn came in it was a perfect match.”

On the one hand, Leaf said, you only get to coach freshmen for one season. On the other hand, there’s a whole new batch of freshmen coming in each year to work with.

“When I started, there wasn’t a lot of Junior Tackle,” Leaf recalled. “Back then, we’re starting with how to get in a stance the first day, and now, we’re installing offense on the first day.”

You think the Viking varsity has continuity in coaching, with Amos there for more than two decades and many of his assistants there for nearly that long?

Leaf had the same offensive coordinator on the freshman team for the past 17 years. That OC, Tim Kohal, will replace Leaf as freshman coach next season.

Two other freshman assistants have been there for 10 years.

“The main thing is, why I’ve stayed so long, when Shawn came in, there’s no egos,” Leaf said. “I have a question, I go to Shawn, or (assistant) Dustin Shafer ... ‘I’m not sure how to do this.’ ... and they’re at my practice the next day, helping me out. There’s absolutely no ego in this program, and that’s why it works.”

He’s coached freshmen teams with as many as 70 players. Nowadays, his teams are about half that size.

He’s coached two girls on the freshman team.

“One of them was onery and tough,” Leaf recalled. “She played guard for me. We were playing Bonners Ferry, and the (Bonners) kid said, ‘Look at this, I’ve got a girl up against me.’ And they got down into a stance and she just hocked a big loogie on his hand, just to let him know that she was there to play that day.”

AS LEAF’s job is to get his players ready for JV and varsity, the freshmen run what the varsity run. That means running plays every 18, 19 seconds like the varsity does.

He’s been blessed to have some heady quarterbacks at the freshman level.

He recalled “how smart and how tough” JJ Turbin was as a frosh QB.

“We were playing Lake City, and they knew our audible system, they had picked it up, because we weren’t very fancy back then,” Leaf said. “They are knowing our plays, and killing us. Next thing you know, we’re just running down the field. And we get off the field and I go ‘JJ, what was the difference?’

Turbin said, ‘Well, I saw they had picked up what we were doing, so I moved everything one number over, so it completely screwed ’em up.’

“What freshman kid thinks of that, on the spot, on the field?”

Leaf didn’t get to coach Colson Yankoff, who is now battling for the QB job at the University of Washington — he went straight to the JV team as a ninth-grader.

“Something about Colson,” Leaf said. “Every Monday he would come and ask me how we did — ‘Is there anything your quarterbacks need help with?’ He might be one of the nicest kids I’ve ever met.”

Leaf said Chad Chalich “was special for us. He was always calm, he was good with the other kids. There’s a difference between being very good and being a leader. And both Turbin and Chalich, they were natural leaders. Kids followed them, because they knew if I do what he’s saying, it’s going to be a good thing.”

WHEN YOU’RE a freshman team, sometimes whoever the varsity team is playing has a freshman team, and you just play them. But sometimes you have to find your own games.

They’ve played Colfax, Orofino ... often other schools’ junior varsity teams, just to get a game.

“Two years ago, we played Irrigon, Ore.,” Leaf said. “You go to Umatilla and take a right. Freshman game, left at 9 in the morning, got home at 11 at night. They had no locker rooms for us, it was 95 degrees. My two girl managers went and stole water from their sidelines so we’d have water.”

Next fall, someone else will get ’em ready for the varsity at Coeur d’Alene High.

Someone else will deal with the kid who forgot his game pants.

Meanwhile, Leaf will be on the golf course. Or fishing. Or helping his wife, a Realtor.

At least for the time being.

“It’s been a heckuva ride,” Leaf said. “I’m going to take a year off, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m back doing something with it again.

“It’s just time to do some other things in my life.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.