By Erik Jacobsen ejacobsen@stmedianetwork.com Nov 29, 2010 05:01PM

In six years, St. Edward’s football program went from doormat to conference champion.

In that same six-year span, Green Wave coach Mike Rolando and his staff went from trying to figure out how to get a first down to trying to figure out how to make a deep run in the Class 4A state playoffs.

The 2010 season represented a watershed moment for St. Edward’s up-and-coming program. The Green Wave won its first-ever playoff game, tied a single-season school record for wins by finishing 8-3 and claimed the team’s first league title since 1979 by capturing the outright Suburban Christian Conference Gold Division championship.

At the center of that success is Rolando, a 1991 Larkin graduate and a natural leader who took on the thankless task of rebuilding St. Edward’s football program in 2005. Six years later he is the 2010 Courier-News Coach of the Year.

“I consider this a Coaches of the Year award,” Rolando said. “I’ve got a great coaching staff, and several of the guys have been with me since the first year.

“To tell you the truth, what we consider ourselves good at is motivation. We are honest with the players, help them set realistic goals and then motivate them to reach those goals. In terms of X’s and O’s, there’s probably a lot of coaches out there that are better than us. But as far as motivating the players, I think we do a really good job.”

Starting from scratch

To understand how far St. Edward has come under Rolando, it is important to understand where he started.

Rolando took over as the Green Wave’s coach in July 2005, one month before the start of the season. The program was in disarray after the abrupt resignation of former coach Rich Sanders only days before Rolando’s hiring.

Rolando had been the sophomore coach on Sanders’ staff, and he brought with him additional experience from his days coaching the Crusaders youth football team. He also brought to his staff Marc Rusinko, a friend and fellow Crusaders coach who to this day remains a right-hand man to Rolando as the Wave’s defensive coordinator.

Eloy Diaz and Gordon Tourtellott arrived to pick up their sons from some of those first practices under Rolando and noticed the thin coaching ranks. They offered to help, and six years later Diaz still coaches receivers and defensive backs for St. Edward while Tourtellott guides the program’s sophomore team.

When Sanders bolted the program, so did a large number of players expected to contribute on the varsity level. That left Rolando with a squad made up predominantly of underclassmen who were unprepared for the challenges that awaited in what was then the highly competitive Suburban Catholic Conference.

The results weren’t pretty in 2005 as the Wave finished 0-9 and was outscored 404-74.

In year two, Scot Brockner and Mike Childers joined the coaching staff, but the Wave endured another 0-9 season. Nonetheless, the foundation of the coaching staff was in place, as evidenced by the fact that Brockner and Childers remain in the fold as St. Edward’s offensive line coach and special teams coach, respectively.

The Green Wave finally notched its first victory under Rolando in Week 7 of the 2007 season, snapping a 27-game losing streak that extended to the Sanders era. Then came a 4-5 finish in 2008 and finally a breakthrough in 2009 as St. Edward went 6-4 and reached the playoffs for only the third time in school history.

Not until this season had the Wave made two consecutive playoff appearances. St. Edward came within three points of advancing to the state quarterfinals this fall and also boasted the area’s best defense, which limited opponents to 11.7 points per game. Despite those gains, the sweat poured early on is not forgotten.

“We would probably look at some of our better coaching accomplishments coming in years one, two and three,” Rolando said. “In our minds that’s probably where we did some substantial work getting kids to buy in to a program that was 0-27.

“Now we’ve got athletes that know how to play football and kids that have won football games at all levels. It’s a little easier to sell this to them than it was to those kids in those first couple years.”

Like a big family

Despite those lean years, St. Edward began attracting more and more players to the program by stressing hard work in the offseason and an overall positive environment.

All of that fit into Rolando’s goal of building a consistent winner.

“If we didn’t think there was a light at the end of the tunnel, I don’t think we could have gotten up every morning and continued to work so hard,” Rolando said of his staff. “We believed that if we did it the right way and focused on academics, discipline and respect that people would want their kids to be a part of a program like that.”

Rolando wanted to make sure that everyone involved in the program felt like a stakeholder. In return he got strong support from St. Edward’s administration, faculty, parents and boosters.

That all-together environment is now a main attraction for the Green Wave.

“Everyone is basically like a big family,” St. Edward senior Sam Pozezinski said. “The coaches are basically father figures to all the kids and it’s just a great atmosphere.”

As the years went on St. Edward’s family grew to include Steve McShane as the team’s defensive line coach, Joe Guistino as the strength and conditioning coach, Chet Arciuch as a general assistant, Dave DeWitt as assistant offensive coordinator and Ryan Lasota, Chris Reynolds, Vince Castoro and Mike West as lower level coaches.

Beyond his group of coaches, Rolando says he wouldn’t be where he is without the support of his wife Teresa Rolando, their children Veronica, Jillian, Ezekiel and Luciano and his mother Dee Rolando.

“I couldn’t ask for a better coaches’ wife,” Mike Rolando said. “She’s one of the loudest fans and she’s always asking me questions about the game. With all the time we have to put in and spend away from our family, I couldn’t do it without her support at home.”

A love of coaching

Rolando has always had a fiery persona on the sidelines, but these days he isn’t as inclined to go easy on his players when they make mistakes. Simply put, he has become more demanding.

Nonetheless, St. Edward’s players respect Rolando’s dedication and coaching style.

“Coach Ro is definitely a motivator,” Pozezinski said. “He’s always willing to put forth the effort and he’s always working hard and balancing his family, job and football. He does it all.”

Added senior Jon Keokanlaya: “Coach Rolando definitely demands a lot, but I think it’s good that he expects a lot out of us because then we perform better and play to the best of our abilities.”

Rolando also earned softball Coach of the Year honors in 2008. He has since stepped down from his head softball coaching post, but he is only the third person to be recognized as C-N Coach of the Year in two separate sports.

Those leadership qualities have been with Rolando throughout his life, including when was the starting quarterback at Larkin and guided the Royals to the 1990 state quarterfinals.

Rolando carried those leadership skills to Valparaiso — where he was mostly a backup quarterback during his college football playing days — and into his professional career in the human resources field.

In many ways, it seems as if Rolando was born to coach.

“There’s always the stress behind the scenes, but I think this was my calling,” Rolando said. “My ability to communicate and motivate kids is what I guess I would say I’m good at. I guess it’s a gift to be able to do that and to get people to buy into what you’re delivering.”