FOOTBALL: Chief Sealth’s head coach Ted Rodriguez discovers post-retirement ‘adventure’ back on the field

(WSB photo: Coach Ted Rodriguez, last month)

By Tracy Record and Patrick Sand
West Seattle Blog co-publishers

Tonight, Chief Sealth International High School head football coach Ted Rodriguez leads his players onto the field at Southwest Athletic Complex for their last regularly scheduled game of an already very successful season.

They’re 5-2. They have the Huling Bowl trophy for the first time in three years. Those are just part of this season’s highlights.

All this after Coach Rodriguez quietly took over the team at the start of the year. Along with leading Sealth’s football team, he’s also athletic director and house administrator next door at Denny International Middle School.

And he’s working after having come out of retirement – twice.

Encountered in the stands at a Sealth game earlier this year, Denny principal Jeff Clark enthused about Coach Rodriguez. So we arranged to talk with him this week.

The coach’s story starts in Austin, Texas. He was born and raised there, attended the University of Texas, and Texas is where he retired from an education career – twice.

“In 2012, I retired again. I was done. My wife and I wanted to move somewhere and have an adventure. I had been coaching more than 35 years at that point in Texas.”

While this is his first year as a head football coach, his Texas years included work as a head coach in baseball and softball and assistant head coach in football. He was resolute that “I wasn’t going to coach any more.” And they were going to leave Texas. “It was either going to be Manhattan, D.C., or Seattle.” He had been here for workshops, brought his wife, and fell in love with the city.

So in summer of 2012, they came to Seattle, tried to find a place to live downtown, but didn’t – until going back home to Texas and searching online. “Sight unseen, we took a lease” and drove behind the movers to arrive at a new home in Belltown.

“We loved the area. I wasn’t going to work, I was going to play. My wife was going to play for a year, then find a job.”

But Rodriguez realized a life of leisure wasn’t what he was looking for after all.

“By October, I couldn’t stand it. I started looking for jobs.”

Not education. He had a dream of working in the restaurant business, becoming a sous chef. Didn’t happen. So he got the credentials he needed to go back into education, in Seattle.

His third career in education started at Hamilton Middle School, as an instructional assistant. And then somewhere along the line, “I got the coaching bug again, so I started interviewing for some coaching jobs.”

An interview at West Seattle High School led not to a job there, but to a contact at Chief Sealth, where he joined the softball-coaching staff. And then an instructional-assistant job opened at Sealth.

He was there during Luther Carr‘s first stint as head football coach for the Seahawks. “He came to my classroom one day and said, ‘I heard you coach football’. He said he needed a defensive coach, so I coached with him for a few years.” When Coach Carr left, Coach Rodriguez did too … but not for long. The “house administrator” role came up at Denny, he interviewed with principal Clark, and got the job. He works primarily with seventh-graders right now, “mainly behavioral support,” as well as after-/before-school activities and unique-to-Denny programs such as break-week academies. “There’s a lot of things offered at Denny that aren’t offered at other schools,” Rodriguez notes, enthusing about principal Clark.

And Denny is what put him back onto the field at Sealth. Coach Carr – who also taught at Denny – came back as head Sealth football coach last year, and asked Rodriguez to join him, which he did, as defensive coordinator.

Now, this year, with Coach Carr having moved out of state for a new opportunity, Coach Rodriguez is leading the Seahawks – and if you’ve watched them, you know they are a strong defensive team. Lots of returning players from last year, the coach notes, including 13 returning seniors.

“The kids have bought into the system,” he smiles, and he empowers the young leaders, such as linebacker Angelo Laudermilk – “I just give him the front, and he does all the games with it.” They watch film/video on Saturdays and Mondays, looking ahead to the next week.

Another young leader on the defensive side is former Sealth player Daron Camacho, now an assistant coach.

And Coach Rodriguez says his team’s in good shape because so many of them play both offense and defense – “they never leave the field” during games.

Learning that he spent decades in Texas, fabled for the “Friday Night Lights” high-school football mania, we ask the coach if it was a shock when he discovered it’s not quite the obsession in Seattle that it is in Texas – the stands aren’t usually packed, even when a team’s doing well, for example.

No, not a shock, he says, just a difference, and some other things are different, such as, in Texas you have to be a certificated teacher to coach, and many players start football much younger than they do here. “In Texas, the middle schools were part of our coaching staff, we had (the players) all the way up.”

Another difference he notes – private schools drain away some of the talent here. “One of my goals is to get some of these guys back!”

As for this season’s highlights so far, as the regular schedule wraps up – we talked about the Huling Bowl victory over West Seattle High School on September 15th, Sealth’s first win in the crosstown-rival series since 2014.

(WSB photo, September 15th)

Coach Rodriguez savored the players’ excitement. “They went nuts! The stands emptied, the kids took off like they’d won a state championship.” It was a comeback win, too, he recalls, and though the team was down earlier in the game, they didn’t let up. “It was fun. And Coach Marcis (Fennell, WSHS’s first-year head coach) was gracious … I went over and thanked him.”

That victory, he said, set the tone for the whole year – guaranteed to go into the books as a winning year. So, how are things looking for tonight’s game?

“It’s going to be a tough one (but) the kids are confident. Bainbridge is pretty solid, well-disciplined. Their offensive scheme is one we haven’t seen this year – two slots, so they do a lot of misdirection. They run the same defensive front as we do. They have some speed, too – they run a little fly sweep, they run a dive …”

Go see for yourself! Tonight is homecoming night as well as senior night – and the game is earlier than usual, with Sealth and Bainbridge Island High School set to kick off at 5 pm at Southwest Athletic Complex (2801 SW Thistle).

After that? We’ll see what the postseason brings.

5 Replies to "FOOTBALL: Chief Sealth's head coach Ted Rodriguez discovers post-retirement 'adventure' back on the field"

  • dsa October 20, 2017 (1:07 pm)

    Great coach, great team, that is how it works.  Thanks for the interview and reporting.

  • Admiral Mom October 20, 2017 (3:47 pm)

    Mr Rodriguez is da bomb! He is making a positive impact in kids’ lives through his work at Denny and Chief Sealth.

    Good luck tonight!

  • proud mom October 20, 2017 (5:10 pm)

    I’m happy that my students’ school is doing well and, more importantly, feeling great about themselves.

    • mm October 20, 2017 (5:27 pm)

      I agree. My daughter has so much pride in her school, (win or lose) it’s awesome!

  • Bonnie October 20, 2017 (6:14 pm)

    Good luck!!  Mr. Rodriquez is great!

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