By Looks of It, Cieslik Has Right Recipe

To say that Reseda Cleveland Coach Craig Cieslik is unconventional doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.

Clad in jean shorts, a sleeveless T-shirt, a ragged straw hat and tacky gold-rimmed glasses, Cieslik looks like an uncool lifeguard on his way to a nearby swimming pool.

Add to that a stuttering disorder.

“I thought there’s no way he could be our coach,” said lineman Mike Morales, recalling Cieslik’s first day of practice a little more than a year ago.

“And then when he started talking, he would stutter, and it would take him forever to say something. I had to keep from laughing.”

Unfortunately for Cleveland, opposing teams have often had a laugh at the Cavaliers’ expense in recent years.

Two years ago, Cleveland finished 3-6 in its only season under Mike Costa. Cieslik, 30, who had been the junior varsity coach, took over last season and the Cavaliers finished 2-7-1.

“There was no football program,” Cieslik said flatly.

This season, however, Cleveland is turning heads. Powered by their double-wing offense that features running backs Julius Killings, Clyde Griffin and Kenny Niaki, the Cavaliers (4-1) are averaging 45 points in their victories.

It’s made all the more impressive because football has long been an afterthought at Cleveland, which is more noted for its baseball and boys’ basketball teams. Sure, Coach Bill Paden had some gridiron success a few years back with top players Matthew Clark and James Bethea, but the program soon fell into disrepair.

“When you think of football in the [San Fernando] Valley, you think of Taft, Birmingham, Granada [Hills], El Camino Real,” Cieslik said. “Everywhere but here.”

The laughs weren’t directed solely at the scoreboard. Some youth league teams have larger rosters than those at Cleveland, which still has only 20 players on the varsity roster.

Said quarterback David Contreras: “Some [opponents] would yell out, ‘Where’s the rest of your team?’ ”

Cieslik has limited the roster by design this year. About 50 players came out for the first day of fall practice, but the numbers quickly dwindled after the coach put them through tough, disciplined practices often in the heat.

“One [player] lasted about 20 minutes,” Cieslik said. “We just had to weed out all the problem kids and the quitters.”

As a result, he and his assistant, his brother Clint, often have to recruit a player or two from the JV team to help out with practice drills. Nearly everyone gets some playing time.

But as losses piled up, Cieslik wondered whether his approach would backfire. He admits there was a perception he was running off players and said he received a few threats because of that.

“There were nights when I wondered if we would even have a team here,” he said. “A school with about 3,700 kids and I can’t get kids to buy into working hard.”

Cieslik is no stranger to working with small squads.

As a tight end at Antelope Valley Christian, he scored two touchdowns for the champion Eagles in the 1990 Southern Section Eight-Man small schools title game.

Before coming to Cleveland, the Lancaster native coached at Acton Vasquez, a school with an enrollment of 540.

“I’m not sure I’d know what to do with a large team,” he said.

Defensive tackle Harold Maldonado said Cieslik is tough but also unfailingly positive.

“He makes us believe,” Maldonado said. “He talks about winning all the time.”

All that will be put to a test Friday night at home against Woodland Hills Taft.

The Cavaliers have lost to the section power by scores of 55-8 and 50-7 the last two seasons.

Cleveland has one message to send: Keep overlooking us.

“We love when teams make fun of us,” Niaki said. “They make fun of us before the game, and then we take it to them on the field.”

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When South Gate’s Marco Vasquez rushed for 304 yards against L.A. Garfield at the end of his junior season, it only whetted the appetite of Ram football fans.

Vasquez has rushed for 993 yards in five games for the Rams (3-2). The senior is coming off a 309-yard, four-touchdown performance against L.A. Hamilton.

“He’s like a wild horse,” South Gate assistant Juan Carrera said. “It takes two or three guys to bring him down.”

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City top 10: 1. Venice (5-0); 2. Dorsey (5-0); 3. Gardena (5-0); 4. Crenshaw (4-1); 5. Fremont (4-0-1); 6. San Pedro (4-1); 7. Granada Hills (4-1); 8. Birmingham (2-3); 9. Carson (2-3); 10. University (4-0-1).