Century's Crego leads by example

SANTA ANA - A major component of a coach's job is motivation.

If an athlete cannot get motivated by a coach like Ted Crego, then nothing will motivate that athlete.

Crego, 53, is the football head coach at Century High School, in Santa Ana. Two years ago, Crego suffered a stroke. With limited use of his right arm and leg, he relies on a wheelchair to get around campus and the football field.

Crego is a not a coach who had a stroke while he already was the coach. He became head coach after the stroke.

He has taken on a difficult assignment. Century football is struggling.

The Centurions have lost 14 consecutive Orange League games, and are 7-33 over the past four seasons. They were shut out four times last season, when they went 2-8 overall and 0-5 in league. Last year's head coach, Jesse Gomez, left in late spring to accept an assistant coaching position at new Yorba Linda High School.

Crego, who has been a teacher at Century for 19 years and a lower levels boys basketball coach there for 12 years, had just resumed coaching football at Century, after two seasons as offensive line coach at Segerstrom High, to coach the line when Gomez resigned.

Crego volunteered himself as head coach. Century principal Margie Salcedo accepted, with one stipulation.

"She wanted a guarantee from me that I would take care of myself," Crego said. "She wanted me to promise I wouldn't get carried away and not look after my health. So I brought her a note from my wife, Paula, who guaranteed she wouldn't let that happen."

Crego is not just an advisor or a CEO type of coach. At a practice last week, Crego supervised a passing-receiving drill, and then maneuvered over to where the linemen were stretching in preparation for their day's work. A football practice is an outdoor classroom, and Crego did plenty of teaching on this afternoon.

Crego's ability to connect with players is why Gomez hired Crego.

"Ted's very good at explaining things, a creating a picture for the players with his drills," Gomez said. "He's a great communicator. When he gets after the guys, they really snap to it. If guys are horse-playing around in the weight room, Ted gives them that one bark and they quickly understand what needs to get done."

Crego played football and wrestled at University High, then continued to play football at Saddleback College and Southern Utah University.

When his football life ended, Crego went into the advertising field.

"So I'm 30 years old, working in advertising, and for some reason, I don't know why, I start looking at the classified ads," Crego said. "There was an ad for an assistant football coach at Brea Olinda, where Bill Brown was the head coach. He hired me as a lower levels coach in 1987."

When Bill came here to Century when the school opened two years later, I came over with him."

Brown convinced Crego to become a teacher. "He said, 'You really aren't doing what you should be doing for a living.' So I went back and got my credential, and started teaching here at Century in 1993."

Century football was successful right away. The Centurions, with future head coaches Crego, Steve Howard, Rick Milhizer and Scott Orloff on the staff, won the Pacific Coast League championship and went to the CIF-Southern Section Division VIII semifinals in 1992 and won the Empire League championship in '94.

Century has not finished above .500 since '94. Brown retired after the '97 season. Crego stayed on, coaching linemen, and was part of a house cleaning of the football program when the entire coaching staff was fired after a fourth consecutive 0-5 league finish in 2002.

Crego took a couple of years off from coaching, then accepted Coach Mike Maceranka's invitation to join the football staff as offensive line coach at Segerstrom, when that school opened three years ago, as a walk-on (a walk-on coach is a coach who is not a fulltime faculty member). He continued to coach lower level basketball at Century,

Then, in March of 2007, Crego just finished a meeting with Century boys basketball head coach and athletic director Greg Coombs when it happened.

"I was walking across campus and all of a sudden my right side got very heavy," Crego said. "I grabbed onto a bar, and fortunately a custodian was right there to help me."

Crego was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, and was told he had suffered a stroke. He was kept overnight, and seemed to be coming out of it fine, but then a series of stroke-related complications quickly ensued. He was induced into a coma that lasted 45 days, underwent a tracheotomy, a feeding tube was inserted.

In all, he remained hospitalized until December, a 10-month period. He could not start any type of physical or occupational therapy for another six months, which set back his opportunity for a quick and thorough recovery.

With a rigorous therapy program, Crego is walking more and more, but still relies on the motorized wheel chair for a full-day's work like running summer football practice.

He resumed coaching basketball this past winter, and went back to teaching in Century's business technology department. When Crego decided he could not continue coaching football at Segerstrom - "I'm afraid my walk-on days are over," he said - Gomez quickly recruited Crego to coach linemen at Century.

Then Gomez went to Yorba Linda High, which is close to his home where he has a 5-year-old daughter just starting kindergarten. And Crego took over.

The wheelchair is no obstacle to coaching.

"It might be a challenge at a couple of places this fall," he said. "Some fields have that lip around the track and this thing won't go over it. But we've got a portable ramp. We'll figure it out."

Much of Crego's coaching staff is made up of guys who played and/or coached at Los Alamitos High, and the Centurions are going to run Los Al's high-octane offense. From the looks of a practice last week, the skill players are there who can make it work.

Playing well in practice sometimes is not the biggest challenge at Century or at any Santa Ana high school. Just getting there, and staying there, too often is.

"You know, I started coaching in Brea," Crego said. "Those kids were great kids, and they had everything, too - a stable family, and all they had to do was ask mom or dad if they needed everything. These kids here, many of them don't have that."

Which is why coaching at Century is so satisfying for Crego.

"We can provide a lot of direction, really make some changes in the lives of these kids," he said. "When they come back four or five years later and say, 'You really made a difference in my life,' that's very special."

Huver Miranda, a lineman who will be a senior this coming school year, said Crego already is making that impact on the lives of this fall's Century football players.

"My dad passed away when I was a freshman," Miranda said. "And then I see coach and I think, 'If he can go through what he's going through, then I can go through anything, too.'"

Before every practice, and every game, Ted Crego can deliver a heck of a pep talk without saying a word.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com