Doug Velasquez is no stranger to working with small-town high school football programs and is ready to once again work his magic, having been formally announced as Cardinal’s new head football coach on Feb. 15.
“The football program has been struggling and I have a passion for rebuilding things and fixing some things that have been struggling and I have had some success doing it so the two of them together was actually a perfect fit,” Velasquez told The Weekly Villager on Feb. 26.
Velasquez not only will step into the head football coaching role but also assume the position of Cardinal’s Dean of Students, primarily working to ensure attendance and discipline throughout the school. According to him, having a full-time position in the building will help him better establish roots and stability to a football program that is on its fourth head coach in the last four seasons.
“I have taught out here for about 20 years and actually what really got my attention out there was the ability to become the dean of students and effect more people than just the kids I have in my classroom,” the first-year coach added. “I just want to have a more positive effect on the high school building. I have been a football coach forever, so I had the itch to get back in to building kids and building a football program.”
Velasquez will assume his new position at Cardinal High School at the end of the current school year.
Velasquez has spent the last 12 years serving as an 8th grade intervention specialist in the Columbiana Exempted Village School District and was the head football coach at Lowellville High School from 2016-2019 and the varsity wrestling coach from 2018-2022.
In addition to having the goal of reviving a Huskies’ football program that has amassed a 1-19 record over the past two years, Velasquez will also work with several other Cardinal sports programs such as basketball and wrestling.
“The weight room is great but there is something to be said about one-on-one competition that really aids your kids’ competitiveness and it shows on the football field but wrestling and football go hand-in-hand and it is good to be physical on the basketball court too so basketball will benefit,” he said.
Velasquez’s football journey began when he was a student-athlete in Youngstown, playing as an inside linebacker at Boardman High School and was recruited to play at Division I college football at Moorhead State, where he played defense under former NFL Coach Rex Ryan’s, who served as the defensive coordinator for four seasons.
According to Velasquez, Ryan was a strong source of inspiration not just as a player but also in helping him get involved in the coaching side of football, becoming a student-assistant coach during his collegiate career.
“He really admired just being hard-nosed and physical,” the 1989 Boardman graduate noted. “That was something that he and his brother, Rob, saw on my high school film and he coached the same way. The one thing that I remember when I got hurt and was talking to him about getting into coaching, he said just listen be yourself. “
Velasquez coached the linebackers’ position group at Phoenix Junior College in AZ after graduating college and also coached at Youngstown State University, but soon returned to coaching high school football, as some of his next stops included being the co-defensive coordinator at Youngstown Ursuline when the Fighting Irish won their first football state championship in school history during the 2008 campaign.
He primarily worked as a defensive football coach, holding several defensive coordinator titles before earning his first head coaching opportunity at Mineral Ridge High School in 2013.
Despite only being there for one year, Velasquez earned another head coaching opportunity at Lowellville, when he took over a program coming off the heels of a 2-8 season and transformed the program, increasing the win total each season until they recorded a 6-4 record in 2019.
He stepped down following the 2019 season because he needed to find some work-life balance but said he always felt the urge to get back into coaching football.
Although the Huskies’ football program is a small one, Velasquez said that he faced a similar issue coaching Lowellville football but still achieved success and will attempt to do the same with Cardinal.
