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La Sierra football coach makes a difference07:00 AM PST on Friday, November
14, 2008By MICHAEL BECKER
The Press-Enterprise RIVERSIDE - Upon being chosen head coach at Riverside
La Sierra, Craig Cieslik's first order of business was to install a new offense. His second was to set the music playlist.
From summer of 2007 until very recently, the La Sierra football
team lifted weights to the Backstreet Boys. It watched film under the influence of WHAM! And took the field on game days to
the melodic tones of *NSYNC, which only begins to explain the La Sierra Eagles, a band of 24 football players Cieslik insistently
calls his "funny little team." In the exaggerated masculinity
that is high school football, Cieslik's musical selections alone defy convention. But it doesn't end there. Story continues below David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise Craig Cieslik brought a new way of doing things to La Sierra and has unified a diverse group into a team that has
fun and wins games. Cieslik plucked his starting quarterback and
a starting offensive lineman straight from the school's cheerleading squad. The team's summer practice gear included
bright, tie-dyed T-shirts. Its blue-and-white horizontal striped socks seemed borrowed from "Where's Waldo?"
Cieslik concluded a recent practice by gathering his players in
a circle for a team massage. Opposing teams often looked at the
Eagles and figured they were weak. On some occasions, lineman Oscar Hernandez said bluntly, "They thought we were gay."
The Eagles reveled in the wackiness. It became their body armor.
And in a season of swift success, in which the Eagles (6-3, 3-3 Inland Valley League) can clinch a playoff berth with a victory
over Moreno Valley tonight, they have learned that differences can by unifying. "The kids just want to come out and be as goofy as possible so the other team is like, 'What's wrong
with these guys?' " said assistant coach Joe Salazar. "Then,"
assistant coach Jeremy McCarney said, "we shock 'em." On
April 19, 2007, when Cieslik accepted the head coaching position at La Sierra, one of the men who hired him noted his unusual
offense and his attention to conditioning. Most impressive, former La Sierra athletic director Ron Edmondson said, was his
ability to flip struggling programs into winners. Cieslik did his
best work at small schools with tiny rosters. His no-huddle double-wing offense was such a novelty that it compensated for
the athletic shortcomings of his players. And to perfect it, each of them had to be willing to play 48 straight minutes --
the equivalent of an entire game. The 35-year-old coach liked to boast that his teams were the "hardest working ... the
most disciplined ... and the best conditioned." When he arrived
at La Sierra, Cieslik, who begins every morning at 4:20 by running five miles, put the slogan on a T-shirt. The job at La Sierra appealed to Cieslik because of the program's recent history of success.
Although the Eagles went 1-9 in 2006, they had enjoyed their most productive season in 2005, when they finished 10-3 and advanced
to the CIF semifinals. But by 2006, most of those players had graduated,
and when Cieslik took over in 2007, his roster bore little resemblance to the CIF squad. Nearly 70 players went out for football during Cieslik's first spring practice. But few could withstand
his strenuous conditioning program, which included hill workouts, an obstacle course and a mile run to begin each practice.
"The next day, half were gone," junior Ukpono Udi said.
"By the next day another half were gone. By the fourth week we had 30 kids. Even during the season people were leaving."
There were days when senior running back Jerry Parker would look
around the weight room and marvel at those who remained. "Is this it?" he'd think and shake his head. The La
Sierra roster lists -- perhaps generously -- eight of the 24 players as weighing more than 200 pounds. Parker, who played
on the offensive line before Cieslik moved him to running back, is not one of them. "Everybody told me I'm a running back. Every coach has told me that," said Parker, who is 5-foot-11,
191 pounds. "But (Cieslik) is really the only coach to put me there." Story continues below His teammates share similar tales of serendipity. Quarterback
Conner Sudol and lineman Derek Cortes spent last season as back spotters for the cheerleading squad. And as the football team
worked its first summer perfecting Cieslik's complicated offense, Sudol and Cortes prepared for a three-day cheerleading
camp at UCLA, assisting a flyer in executing full-downs, liberties and scorpions. "I'm not going to lie," said Sudol, whose foray as a cheerleader still serves as an endless source
of amusement for his teammates and coach. "Cheer camp was fun." He is not the only form of entertainment. There is senior Jerry Dean, who will dance whenever prompted by Cieslik.
"Jerry Dean," Cieslik said last week, "get silly!"
at which point Dean began gyrating his arms and legs to mimic a popular hip-hop dance movement. "How does he do it?" wondered Salazar, as Dean's teammates burst into hysterics.
Cortes is called Mutley by teammates and coaches -- "Like a
dog," Cieslik joked, "because he has an underbite." McCarney,
the assistant coach, is called T-rex by players because of his tiny arms that resemble those of the dinosaur. And then there is Cieslik, who has worked his entire life to overcome a stutter
that occasionally presents itself at times of importance, like when he is teaching health class, or giving orders on the football
field. At those moments, Cieslik is known to smack his palm to his
left thigh, a gesture his players are quick to mimic. And Cieslik
plays along. He begins each semester in the classroom and on the football field by addressing his speech impediment head-on.
"I don't look at it as a problem," Cieslik will say before getting to the punch line. "I just made up for
it with great looks." "I have great parents who, growing
up, would always make me talk," Cieslik said. "I'd have to order food for our family when we went out to eat.
I recall standing up in front of the entire elementary school to give a speech on Ferdinand Magellan, standing on the stage
in front of 700, 800 kids, who would go, 'B...b...b...b...' in the crowd making fun. "I think now, what I just really like to do is go into struggling programs, programs where
people say, 'You can't win, you can't do this,' because that was kind of like my life as a kid. "I've had whatever insecurities they've had. Their shortfalls, stuff
they might be insecure about, they might be shy about. It comes out here. But it helps them. "I tell them, 'If I stutter and I can coach and I can teach, you guys can do anything,
too.' " Reach Michael Becker at mbecker@pe.com
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