Head coach Lee Leslie addresses Kahuku players following a team practice. Michael Lasquero | SL

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It’s been over three months now since Kahuku High School officially announced the hiring of Lee Leslie as the head coach of its football program. With the school year over and summer practices underway, ScoringLive ventured up to Laie to check out the next chapter for Big Red.

Leslie comes into the program with a wide variety of coaching experience.  He has coached professionally with the Arena Football League, as well as both the college and high school levels. During his 20-plus-year career, Leslie has won 17 championships and six “Coach of the Year” awards.

“It’s a different atmosphere (here),” said Leslie. “Coach Reggie (Torres) did a great job (and) coach Siauki (Livai) did a great job before that. My goal is to be disciplined, obedient and (to) have as much fun as we can have with the program. Everyone has got their different ways, but that’s what worked for me over the years. I want these kids to have a blast with us, and us with them.” 

The mood of Tuesday’s practice was certainly on par with Leslie’s liking. Practice was fast-paced, upbeat and energetic.

“When I came here I had a real strong feeling for the spirit,” said Leslie. I really, really enjoy the things that I’ve had over the years. Coaching in the Arena Football League for nine years, you get to know a lot of the Polynesian kids from all the different schools.

“I love their passion. These kids, they don’t stop until you’re done. You can keep longer and they’re just going to keep going longer. They’re obedient. They just need a good solid direction and they’re going to get to the end of this just fine.” 

One of the biggest changes with Leslie at the helm will be with the Red Raiders’ offense.  Leslie best described his offense as “wide open.”

“Offensively we’re going to be capable of doing whatever,” Leslie said about his offense. “If it’s a hard rain game we’re going to adjust to that. If it’s a game where we’re behind and we’ve got to get the (lead) back, we’ll get it back. The offense is wide open and I can shut it down too. We’ll have all the answers hopefully and we just got to make sure that we’re ready once we hit the field that we’re going to be mentally prepared for it all – but we will be. I didn’t come all the way here not to be prepared.”

Leslie’s offense might seem and look complex, but there is a unique system that makes it all work.

“It’s a numbering system that can take me from the spread to the Power-I,” Leslie said delving into how the offense works. “I don’t have to teach the spread. I don’t have to teach the Power-I. I don’t have to teach the west coast. I just have to teach my numbering system and then we can jump to what we need to jump too..”

Kahuku will also have a new face commanding the defense in former Kaiser defensive coordinator Sola Soliai. In 2013 the Cougars held opposing offenses to a stingy 8.6 points per game. Kaiser also had four first-teamers and three second-teamers on defense in the ScoringLive Division II All-Hawaii teams. 

“My expectation for (Coach Sola) and the rest of these guys defensively is bend but don’t break. We can’t make nine great plays in a row and then get beat over the top. That can’t happen so we got to be disciplined and obedient on our job and what we’re supposed to do. We want to absolutely dominate our opponent. We want to (get) to the quarterback on every play,” Leslie said on the team’s defense. 

Unlike the offense, defense shouldn’t see much change in how it operated last year. However coach Soliai did stress that the defense needs to be more fundamentally sound.

“Nothing too much different on the defensive side. It’s just that we got to get back to the basic fundamentals of (defense),” said Soliai. “We just got to rep it. We need to clamp down on being more fundamentally sound in any aspect of the defensive side – then we just go from there and everything will fall in place.

“It’s huge being here. We just got to take it and go with it. There is a lot of people that would like to be in our shoes. We don’t want to disappoint anybody. We just got to stay focused and keep our eyes on the prize and just keep working hard.”

While a new regime will ultimately bring forth change, Coach Leslie is hoping that all those that have come through the school can take pride in the product put out.

“I think coach Sola and I want to raise that bar as high as we can raise it – which means cleaning up our area, painting things on the wall, bringing that Kahuku pride, honoring those people that have played here before,” said Leslie. “Hopefully (we are) doing so well that they all want to come back and see our group of kids.”