Missing Man Formation

It’s business as usual for the Monroe High football team.

Assistant coach Don Senegal is pacing the practice field, peppering players with encouraging words as they begin sprinting through the afternoon heat.

“This is great,” Senegal says, clapping his hands. “This is the place to be. Sixty-eight degrees out here.”

It’s August and the mercury is closer to 98. But accuracy isn’t the point. Optimism is.

The Vikings are poised to begin working out wearing helmets this week and full-contact practices are scheduled to kick off next week. Optimism, as is the case every summer, pervades.

But so does uncertainty.

While the players soon will be in pads, their head coach, Fred Cuccia, will remain in a hospital. For how long is anybody’s guess.

Cuccia, 50, began undergoing rehabilitative therapy two weeks ago at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in his sleep July 21. There is no word on when he will be released.

But family, friends and even doctors say Cuccia--who coached Poly to a City Section championship in 1990 before initiating an impressive turnaround at Monroe upon his arrival in 1994--is making remarkable progress, considering the short period of time since his stroke.

Cuccia remains partially paralyzed on his right side and has dropped about 20 pounds, according to Carol Cuccia, his wife of 22 years. Carol Cuccia requested that Fred not be interviewed or photographed.

Cuccia, however, increasingly is displaying movement of his limbs and has gone from being unable to speak to discussing strategy with his tight circle of assistants.

“They’re getting him up and moving him around and he’s taking steps,” Carol Cuccia said. “They have a whole gym and he’s doing station-to-station training. Bits and pieces are coming back. But it’s all going to take time.”

Those close to Cuccia, a popular and gregarious member of the coaching community, say that if anyone is capable of returning to the sidelines so quickly after such a serious illness, Cuccia is.

Monroe Principal Joan Elam, who visits Cuccia regularly and echoes Carol Cuccia’s assessment of the coach’s condition, said she has no plans to name a replacement, or even an interim coach.

Elam, Carol Cuccia said, even has talked about requisitioning a golf cart for Cuccia should he be unable to roam the sidelines upon his return.

“I’m confident that the staff will continue to carry on the way they have been,” Elam said. “When I saw Fred on Wednesday, I told him we would start videotaping practices for him. Hope springs eternal. I’m hoping to see Fred back out there.”

Senegal, 27, an eight-year assistant to Cuccia at Poly and Monroe, said he is “keeping [Cuccia’s] spot warm for him.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if, the last couple of games of the season, Freddy comes rolling out there, ready to go,” he said.

Yet Senegal concedes the team must prepare for the likelihood that its leader will not return--at least not this season.

“That’s the way we’re preparing,” Senegal said. “You have to prepare that way, that he’s not going to be here. That way you don’t have any false hopes. That’s the way we gotta take it.”

Thus, the fallen coach practically is a taboo topic during workouts. Rocco Cuccia, a junior center for the Vikings, said he wouldn’t have it any other way and neither would his father.

Still, Rocco Cuccia, Fred’s only son, said he is touched by teammates’ gestures of well-wishing toward his father.

The day after Cuccia was taken by ambulance at 3 a.m. from his La Canada home, about 30 players arrived at the hospital, attempting to visit their coach. Turned away, the group headed to Cuccia’s home to console Rocco.

The team subsequently has presented the coach with get-well cards, videotapes, even a football signed by the team. Several players regularly pay visits to the hospital.

“I know they all care about my dad,” Rocco Cuccia said. “Everybody’s been sorta down. They say we’re dedicating the season for him.”

Rocco Cuccia said that in recent weeks, he and his father have affirmed to each other that Monroe would win the City Section 3-A Division championship this fall. The Vikings--15-10 in Cuccia’s tenure--were 9-4 last season and reached the 3-A semifinals.

Six defensive starters are expected to return and so is every member of the entire offensive line.

Fred Cuccia, his wife said, was itching to don a whistle and carry a clipboard this season. She believes he still will.

“I do [believe he’ll return], based on what I’ve seen him do so far,” she said. “If he can’t walk the sidelines, he’ll be on the sidelines in some way. He’s already talking to Donnie about it. First thing he said to him the other day was, ‘Hi, Don. How’s practice going?’ ”