The Carson High Colts freshman and sophomore team of 2004 lost their first game, 34-13. To this day, it remains Dave Canales’ favorite game in his entire coaching career. He would win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks, make multiple playoff appearances as both a coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and coach players to career years in the NFL.
That first game, though, that first loss, was a defining moment.
The loss itself should not have been surprising. Carson’s team was primarily freshman, while the team they were playing, Venice, had fielded their JV squad, which was made up of mostly juniors. When Canales looked across to the other sideline, though, he didn’t focus on the bigger, faster, and stronger players. He wondered how the staff had got them to that point.
A couple of coaches on that Venice staff were friends with the Canales family, so Dave decided, why not just ask them? What is your blueprint to create a winning team? The coaches didn’t gatekeep their secret; instead, they shared their philosophy.
The following year, the two teams faced off again to open the season. Carson blew them out. And, as Kevin, who was defensive coordinator for the 2005 squad, wants to note, “it was a shutout.”
But back to 2004, and that first season as a head coach for Dave Canales. The team kept growing, eventually reaching a number in the 70s. They had to institute a travel squad for a freshman team simply because they couldn’t take everyone. However, the priority in coaching for the Canales family was to take on any kid who wanted to play. Josh, the wide receivers and specials teams coach for his brother that first year, said the mission statement was simple: in the shadow of Los Angeles, any teenager spending their time at football practice was one less teenager off the street.
“It meant one less kid getting into trouble after school,” Josh says. “Playing time wasn’t our main focus.”
That first season, while a labor of community love more than anything, had a lot of lessons for Dave Canales as a head coach, too. During one game, he pulled a player. The reasoning was simple: he wasn’t playing hard enough. The player’s father in the stands took issue. He started yelling at the coaching staff. Josh responded. Tensions escalated, and Dave jumped in, anger pulsing at the questions around his coaching decisions and the personal barbs the father was throwing at his brother.
Richard Masson was the AD for Carson High at the time. He was supervising the freshman and sophomore team game that day. As other fans got involved in the heckling, and Dave itched to respond even harsher, Masson pulled him to the side. He admittedly doesn’t remember all the details of the issue that started it all, but he remembers what he taught Canales that day.
“I said, ‘Stop having rabbit ears,'” Masson recalls. ‘”Get over there and coach your team.'”
Masson suspended Canales for the next game. The young coach sat in his car in a nearby parking lot and watched from afar. He returned the next week, smarter and more prepared for what it would take to be a head coach when your life is under a microscope and in a vacuum.
“It was kind of a defining moment in his young career as a coach,” Masson reflects, “To be able to focus through distractions and do what needed to be done with his team.”
A lot of what needed to be done hinged on Jack Sula.
Months of Sula waking up at 5 a.m. to pile into that old BMW and train with a few others had given Canales an up-close look at what the running back and linebacker could become.
“I was good,” Sula says now, “but (Dave) coached me into a completely different player.”
Canales noted where Sula’s game was lacking and where it could go; mainly, Sula needed to be faster, so Canales started training him in track after football practice.
Over the next year, more and more kids on the team noticed Sula’s improvement and asked to be trained as well. Canales had to upgrade from the BMW to the church bus to pick up more kids for the early morning sessions. The team started winning, even coming back in one game from three touchdowns down, to garner a win Sula still gets excited about talking to this day.
Sula would go on to lead the Carson varsity team to an LA City title game at the Coliseum behind a 1,800-plus rushing year and garner player of the year awards. He’s now the offensive coordinator for the Carson High Colts.
“I tell everyone, (Dave) was the reason for my success and me developing into a great football player…(but) he did a lot more than just teach me football. He taught me how to be a man, and he coached life into me.”
Nickerson can still rattle off the starting roster from those two years Canales coached the Colts, but the records from a freshman and sophomore team in 2004 and 2005 don’t exist even in the farthest corners of the internet.
“The loss never was like the end result,” though, interjects Nickerson. “It was like, what lesson did we learn from these little things?”
And Josh Canales, who would win a national title as a baseball player with the Florida Gators and go on to play in the Dodgers’ and Astros’ organization, remembers that time one way.
“In all my years of playing ball, those two years may have been the most fun that I ever had.”
