Arceneaux resigns
as St. Louis coachHe says he is leaving because
he did not get hired as a teacher
Darnell Arceneaux resigned yesterday as football coach at Saint Louis School.
Arceneaux, the football program's fourth head coach in four years, said he is leaving the post he held for one year because the school did not hire him as a teacher.
"They said they couldn't get me a job on campus," Arceneaux said in a telephone interview. "I've got a family to think about."
And by not working at school, "you really can't monitor the boys academically, be a guide in their lives and help them spiritually," he said. "I did an OK job at that, but I could have done better if I was spending more time with them on the campus. None of the assistant coaches have (teaching) jobs there, either."
Arceneaux, who is director of student services at the Hawaii Sports Network Foundation, said he was one credit short of graduation when he left the University of Utah after the 2000 season to play in the Hula Bowl. He said he will have a degree in sociology in about a month, after he completes a class he is taking online from Brigham Young's Utah campus.
Todd Los Banos, Saint Louis athletic director, did not want to be interviewed yesterday, and school spokeswoman Rebecca Fernandes did not return several phone calls. Saint Louis President Father Allen DeLong was unavailable for comment.
Arceneaux is disappointed but looking at the positives.
"I'm a little bummed," he said. "I had the opportunity to make a difference in so many lives. It's not just a few lives. We're talking about 96 guys. But I'm going to see if anyone needs an assistant coach."
Arceneaux said he was not interested in being a head coach at another school this season.
"I'm not ready to take a head job right now," he said, "but I would like to go in somewhere as an assistant. That way, I don't have to worry about the public relations aspects and make sure everybody has the right equipment and all those other little things. I'll be able to just concentrate on football. I love coaching the X's and O's."
Arceneaux also said he did not delay his decision because he wants the Crusaders players to have a coach in place as soon as possible to get ready for next season.
Arceneaux, 26, is also a quarterback for the Hawaiian Islanders arenafootball2 team. He was hired as the Crusaders head coach last June to replace Delbert Tengan, who stepped down after winning the state championship in his only season at the helm to focus on his duties as head basketball coach.
Tengan replaced Cal Lee, the winningest coach in Hawaii high school football history, who led Saint Louis to 14 Prep Bowl titles and the first state championship in 1999.
One of Lee's last tasks as Saint Louis athletic director before leaving last summer to become a linebackers coach at the University of Hawaii was to hire Arceneaux as coach. Arceneaux played quarterback under Lee in the mid-1990s before going on to star at Utah.
The job search that ended in the hiring of Arceneaux took two months last year, and the eventual announcement came as a surprise because he had no previous head-coaching experience.
But Arceneaux had success as a coach. After an early-season loss to Kamehameha, its chief rival in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, the Crusaders stormed back to win the league title and made it to the state championship game, where they lost to Kahuku 27-26, finishing the season at 9-2.