Leonard Velasquez

Dora’s new 6-man head football coach, Leonard Velasquez, chose to be a science teacher with a minor in physical education. As a teacher, he’s interactive with his students, and he plans to be interactive with his players’ lives.

How long have you been coaching? I’ve been coaching for 22 years. I started coaching and teaching at Santa Rosa in 1988. I coached in Santa Rosa for numerous years and I was a part of their four state championships as an assistant coach.

What is your favorite sport? When I was at Santa Rosa High School I played second base in baseball, but I also played golf in college. We won a (baseball) state title with Santa Rosa in 1982.

What do you teach? I’m certified in science and K-12 physical education. I’m pretty much going to be teaching science at Dora to 7-12-year-olds. He said he is very interactive and hands on when it comes to teaching so students might be dissecting things in biology and learning new plays while on the field.

I s this your first time coaching 6-man? I was the head football coach at Vaughn High School for three years and they played 6-man there. I’ve coached 6-man, 8-man and 11-man and there’s nothing new about either one, only being in a different place and instructing different kids.

What are you hoping to bring to Dora? I’m hoping not so much Xs and Os, but I’m hoping to bring a tradition to Dora. I to be able to instill in the kids at Dora what it takes to reach a championship level even though the football program is still very young.

What are your goals for this season? My goals are to develop the football program at Dora and, in turn, develop the kids who play the sport. I want to instill pride into the kids where they would want to go on and do other things long after they’re done playing sports.

What changes are going to be made? Like I told the kids and assistant coach Pablo Pena, in my mind I’m already thinking about what we are going to be doing, but that could change once I see the level talent of the kids we’ve got and what we have to work with.

What kind of defense do you run? Right now, we’re probably going to run a 2-4 with a lot of stunt packages mixed in. So we’re going to be sending a lot of people and put pressure on them.

What kind of offense will you run? We’re going to run unbalanced wing sets and triple option stuff. We will be running a lot of play-action and sending the center and tight end out (for passes) on the plays.