Cleveland Coach Makes the Light Moves to Live

Ray Todd was working with the Cleveland High baseball team a couple of months ago when he began to feel very tired.

“I told Steve Landress and Marty Siegel I was going home,” Todd, the head coach, said of his assistants. “I told them to finish up.”

Todd returned to his Westlake home, but the pains he was having--especially in his shoulders and jaw--remained.

A few days later, he entered Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys. The next day, he had an angiogram.

The following day, Jan. 30, he underwent triple-bypass heart surgery. One of his arteries was completely closed, while the other two were 95% and 75% restricted.

“Everything right now is going good,” Todd, 52, said. “I’m progressing well.”

Todd, a counselor at Cleveland, is expected to return to the Reseda campus in September. Because of the operation, he will not assist Landress in football, but will again become baseball coach. Landress and Siegel are coaching the team this season.

“I think I’ve always been a workaholic,” Todd said. “So it’s tough for me to change my ways, but it’s something I’ve had to do.”

Todd has dropped 30 pounds, down to 215, since the operation. He’s on a diet that is high in fiber and low in salts. “I’ve got to stay away from the fats,” he said.

When Todd came home after the operation he had trouble walking 100 yards without getting tired. “I was scared to move, really,” he said. Now, he can walk up to three miles a day.

When Todd was the baseball coach he could, at times, get involved. “I’m a yeller,” he said.

He has attended a few Cleveland games this season and has discovered that the old spark is still there.

“I’ll be on the bench and get excited,” Todd said. “Then I’ll move back into the bleachers.”

Fortunately for Todd, he can at least move.