COACH OF THE YEAR: He takes his football team to the title game and wins the CIF Div. 1 track title.

By KEVIN PEARSON, The Press-Enterprise on Wednesday, June 30, 2010

 

To fully understand Coley Candaele, all it takes is a story about his competitive nature.

Two years ago, with his Vista Murrieta football team at an overnight camp in Claremont, Candaele walked in on his team playing a boxing video game and took over the controls. Curfew was at 11 p.m., but Candaele refused to put the game away until he finally won.

At 1 a.m., with a smile on his face, he finally came out on top and it was time for everyone to rest.

These days, the winning and the sleeping comes a little bit easier for Candaele.

After leading Vista Murrieta to the CIF Inland Division championship game and following it up with a CIF-Southern Section Division 1 track championship in the spring, Candaele has been selected the HS GameTime Boys Coach of the Year.

"He refused to stop until he won," said Chris Navarro, who played both sports under Candaele. "That's just how he is. He's so competitive.

 

"He knows how to win and everything he was taught was the right thing, and he carries it over to us. He won't let us quit. He will find a way to keep us going."

Using a mellow approach and simply asking that his players put in maximum effort and not be afraid to fail, Candaele got the most out of both teams this season and built both programs into regional powers.

His football team is annually among the best in the Inland area and went 13-1 this season before a title-game loss to Temecula Chaparral. On the track, his program dethroned national powerhouse Long Beach Poly and captured the Inland area's first Division 1 title since the CIF split into its divisional format.

Candaele, a former track athlete at Oregon, was quick to cite his stable of football and track assistants for helping him manage both programs, including a track program with over 400 athletes. He said he was only as good as his assistants and said everything sort of fell into place for both programs this year.

"You don't have those type of years very often," Candaele said. "It's always a dream, but to have everything come together like it did, it takes a lot of luck. For it to come together the way it did is pretty remarkable."