New Saint Louis coach begins crusade

By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

One way or another, Darnell Arceneaux was going to be a high school football coach this season. It just turned out to be head coach for the most successful program for some two decades.

Saint Louis head coach Darnell Arceneaux, 25, conducted practice yesterday, the first day the team could practice in pads and helmets. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Arceneaux was appointed coach in June. He had not applied for the job. After all, he was supposed to be offensive coordinator at McKinley for new coach William Moeava. Arceneaux coached at McKinley during spring drills.

"In a sense, I'm just giving back to Saint Louis what it gave me: the opportunity to go out, live a great life, get a free education," he said. "So now I'm giving back to where it all started."

At 25, he and new Radford coach Fred Salanoa are the youngest among ILH and O'ahu Interscholastic Association coaches. And except for a couple weeks of spring ball with McKinley and teaching at some camps, Arceneaux has no previous coaching experience.

But Arceneaux feels his experience as a quarterback — he was a two-time all-state selection at Saint Louis, played at the University of Utah and led the Islanders to the conference semifinals — was good preparation for coaching.

"When you're the quarterback, you're the coach on the field," he said. "You gotta know what everybody does. You gotta know every position. So if an O-(offensive)lineman didn't know what to do on the trap, I had to tell him what he had to do. So I've been coaching ever since I've been playing football. At the end of the season, we'll let our playing and our kids speak for the experience (critics) don't think we have."

Arceneaux added that his lack of coaching experience is not any different than an experienced assistant landing his first head coaching job.

"When anybody gets a new job, you have a transition period," Arceneaux said. "This is my new job and there will be a transition period that everybody faces, whether you're a coach who has been a position coach for 24 years and now moving to head coach. You still have to go through a transition period."

He is already facing issues that coaches always face, the same problems that even Cal Lee said he has dealt with during his 21 seasons as coach at Saint Louis. And he is the winningest coach in Hawai'i high school history.

"There are other things you have to worry about like parents, playing time and things like that," Arceneaux said. "That comes with new territory. My biggest thing is make these kids better men, Saint Louis gentlemen. To help them get to the next level. I'm not putting anything on these kids shoulders that they don't already know. They already know about the winning tradition. We don't have to tell them about that. As long as the kids work hard, play hard, that's all we want."

Arceneaux has a mixture of experienced assistants, as well as newcomers such as himself.

Holdovers from Cal Lee's and Delbert Tengan's tenures as coaches at Saint Louis are offensive coordinator Vince Passas and offensive line coach Frank Pahia.

Arceneaux has former Damien Memorial and University of Hawai'i player Eddie Klaneski as defensive coordinator.

Also on the staff are Jacob Yoro (linebackers), Skip Akina (defensive tackles), Sione Thompson (defensive ends), Anthony Arceneaux (receivers), and Brendyn Agbayani (running backs).

Arceneaux said the past couple of weeks have been hectic as he split time between work (he is a program coordinator with Hawaii Sports Network, placing high school seniors with colleges), practicing with the Islanders and coaching the Crusaders.

"It's been really tough," he said. "But when you love what you're doing, it makes it a lot easier."