Suited to a ‘T’ : After Raising Kane to Head Coach, St. Genevieve Moves Forward by Introducing a New Offense and Competition at Quarterback

One of Kevin Kane’s first moves as St. Genevieve High’s new football coach seemed inevitable.

Kane, who also coaches the baseball team, arrived at an obvious conclusion after watching Roland De La Maza master Santa Fe League opposition with his overpowering fastball. With that prodigious right arm, De La Maza, a Times All-Valley pitcher, rated a tryout at quarterback.

De La Maza, who also stars for the St. Genevieve basketball team, played linebacker and defensive back in 1987, Lindon Crow’s final season in a 12-year career as the school’s football coach. In Kane’s first season, De La Maza is sure to figure prominently in the St. Genevieve defensive backfield, but his first priority may be chewing up opposing secondaries with passes.

De La Maza (6 feet, 185 pounds) has shared the quarterback position this summer with last year’s backup, Leo Cortez. But learning a new offense will be as important as possessing a strong arm. After 12 years with a multiple-set offense influenced by Crow’s playing experience in the National Football League, St. Genevieve will switch to an offense that is as obscure in the West as it is potentially explosive.

St. Genevieve will employ the Delaware wing-T, a run-oriented offense that relies on sleight of hand, finesse and counter plays. The offense, which is popular among small colleges on the Eastern seaboard, has won few converts west of the Mississippi--and outside the Marmonte League.

Last year three Marmonte teams--Westlake, Royal and Channel Islands--ran the wing-T, breaking the West Coast monopoly enjoyed by Westlake Coach George Contreras, the Valley-area’s wing-T guru. Contreras also played a significant role in Kane’s decision to adopt the new offense.

Kane, who was a St. Genevieve assistant the past two years, began searching for a new approach shortly after he was awarded the head coaching job this spring. Last year’s team compiled a 6-5 record behind the running of Ruben Aguirre, who gained 735 yards, averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

Aguirre and much of the team’s size and speed were lost to graduation, and Kane intended to design the offense around returning all-league fullback Doug Vlaming.

But St. Genevieve lacked the size up front to fuel a straight-ahead power attack. So Kane stumbled upon the wing-T after hours of research. He had never seen it run, so he called Contreras and arranged a visit.

“It was almost like he was sharing a secret with me,” Kane said. “At first I thought it was a one-year thing, but he really sold me.”

Kane’s conversion continued when he accompanied De La Maza and running back Chris Andrews to the five-day Golden State Wing-T football camp last month at UC Santa Barbara. High school teams from Southern California and Nevada, including a 20-player contingent from Westlake, attended the clinic, which was run by coaches from East Coast colleges such as Bucknell, Delaware, Delaware State and Princeton.

From the first play from scrimmage in the clinic’s first day of drills, Kane was a convert.

“They wanted to put Chris Andrews at fullback and I said, ‘Wait a minute.’ He’s 140 pounds. You usually think of a fullback as a bruising guy like in the Woody Hayes-type offense. But Chris is quick and on the first play he ran up the middle for a touchdown,” he said.

The wing-T’s big-play potential excites Kane, who hopes the offense has the same impact on St. Genevieve fans.

“I think fans will really enjoy it and I want us to be exciting,” he said. “I thought we were too predictable last season. This offense does break. You can run one play a couple times and nothing happens, but the third time it looks the same and then breaks for 50 yards. It’s explosive, but I hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces. I hope our players aren’t timid.”

The player expected to set the tone is the quarterback. Kane--looking for intelligence, toughness and leadership--is keeping Cortez and De La Maza under close scrutiny. If the decision is too close to call by September, he’ll use both.

“I’m going to play the guy that handles the ball best and can run the option, somebody who’s not afraid to go down the line and turn the ball up field,” he said. “Football is such an emotional game. Some weeks guys don’t have it. I’ll run the players in and out at quarterback. A lot of people don’t believe in that philosophy but I don’t see quarterback any different than any other position.”

De La Maza does. It’s harder to learn than he expected. “I wish I would have started a long time ago,” he said.

Kane agrees. He can’t help thinking about the offensive possibilities if De La Maza were an experienced quarterback. He proved his arm strength in the spring, compiling an 8-1 record with a 0.79 earned-run average for the baseball team, striking out 126 batters and allowing only 23 walks in 79 innings.

De La Maza, who was a wide receiver as a freshman, had a chance to switch to quarterback when a new coach joined Crow’s staff two years ago. Everyone told the new sophomore coach about De La Maza’s arm, urging him to convert the wide receiver to quarterback. But the coach dismissed the scouting reports and made De La Maza a defensive back.

Kane criticizes that coach, saying he made a mistake. Is that coach still with the program?

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said with a laugh. “That was my first year at the school and I didn’t know about him. Everybody told me he was great but you know how it was with talk: Everybody’s great. It turned out they were right about Roland. It just would have been common sense to make him a quarterback.”

Even if he had started earlier, De La Maza might be ill-suited as a drop-back passer. His talents and the requirements for a wing-T quarterback are well-matched, said Contreras, who also raved about the senior’s defense after watching him at the Santa Barbara camp.

“I don’t know what he plays for St. Genevieve, but he’s a great safety. He came off the hash marks to make a number of plays. He’s a darn good athlete,” he said.

“He was a little fuzzy with the footwork and the steps on offense, but I saw a lot of improvement. He’s got a strong arm, but with his athletic ability, being a drop-back passer would be the worst thing for him. I wouldn’t want that kid just dropping back because he loses his ability to run. He has the ability to pick up big chunks of yardage when he rolls out.”

Besides, transforming De La Maza into a drop-back quarterback in one summer would be a full-time job, and the three-sport star runs a split schedule. Along with football practice and passing league games, he works out with the basketball team and pitched for the Sepulveda American Legion baseball team.

The offense and the new position intrigue De La Maza, but he’ll settle for wide receiver and defense if that makes Kane’s rookie season a winning one.

“Quarterback is a lot more difficult and more challenging than it looks, but I like it because you’re always doing something different,” De La Maza said. “I like throwing the ball but I want to win. That comes first.”