CoachSpeak
Who: Jim Rattay (Cesar Chavez HS; Laveen, Ariz.) and Gary Venturo (Corona del Sol HS; Tempe, Ariz.)
Sport: Football
Combined wins: 445
Combined seasons: 63
By Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
LAVEEN, Ariz. — Even at an extended age after 37 years teaching teens, it’s not a season-to-season proposition for Cesar Chavez (Laveen, Ariz.) football coach Jim Rattay.
It never has been.
Never will be.
“It’s day-to-day,” Rattay said. “You’ve got to live for today. Tomorrow is not promised to you and that’s good. It’s like George Allen used to say: the future is now.”
Rattay, father of NFL quarterback Tim Rattay, has always taken the now approach and scattered enthusiasm, an old school approach, offensive wizardry and overall success wherever he’s coached.
He’s won seven state titles at four different schools in two states — Ohio and Arizona — including one his very first season at Elyria Catholic in Ohio.
He was only 26.
“That caught a lot of people off guard,” said Jim’s brother Jeff. “He’s done a lot of that over the years.”
He won three large-school titles in Arizona at Mesa and Desert Vista, and a pair of 2A crowns at tiny Phoenix Christian before deciding he wanted to get back to coaching at the top level again.
Rattay landed this year at Chavez, a team that had won a combined six games the previous two seasons. But following the Rattay/George Allen approach, the Champions have responded quickly, decisively and expertly.
They are 7-3 heading into today’s 7 p.m. Class 5A Division I playoff game at eighth seeded Corona del Sol (8-2) in Tempe.
There, he’ll meet up with an old rival, another tough, old school and successful coach in Gary Venturo. The two often hooked up when Rattay was at Desert Vista.
A Venturo team has never defeated a Rattay team but the ninth-seeded and visiting Champions are the slight underdogs tonight.
None of it means a thing to either coach. Both see the bigger picture.
“These kids are our future,” said Rattay, who has won 264 games in his 32-year high school career. “So we have to get it done today so they can be good fathers and husbands later on.”
Venturo, who has had just two losing seasons in 18 at Corona, takes a similar approach. In his 32nd season overall, Venturo has reflected his over-achieving playing career as an under-sized All-American offensive lineman at Arizona State playing for Frank Kush.
He started coaching in Steelton, Pa. and had Arizona stops in Ray, Yuma and Nogales before landing in Tempe.
“I just try to help young men realize their full potential in the class room as well as on the field,” he said. “The most enjoyable part of this is knowing that this will prepare them for their futures.”
Rattay came from an extremely athletic family and was a standout all-around athlete and high school quarterback in Cleveland. His immediate coaching success wasn’t all that surprising considering he always had an ingenious offensive mind, one that he taught his three sons, one a tailback and two quarterbacks.
How does he coach differently than when he first started?
“In Ohio, you start out and your run the ball and you play great defense,” he said. “Now it’s the spread offense. I’ve always done a lot of passing, especially when Tim was throwing the ball, this is my first time in the spread.”
Tim, a seventh-round pick of the 49ers in 2000, threw for 4,853 yards and 31 touchdowns for four different teams, but currently is a free agent. When Tom Brady got hurt to start the season, he was flown to Foxboro but then not worked out. He worked out with the Lions last month but they signed Daunte Calpepper.
He now helps out coach at Cactus Shadows and he and pops talk almost every day.
“Now I do more of the listening and he does the talking,” Jim said. “It used to be the other way around. Now he scribbles and I watch.”
But dad needs no help working with kids. He’s adjusted, listened, shook his head at times, but still feels like he’s making a difference.
“I used to think kids haven’t changed, that the parents have,” he said. “The parents believed their kids could do no wrong and that was reflective in the kids. Now, I’m just thinking the kids have changed. It has nothing to do with where the school is at. The culture is everywhere. There’s no hiding from the internet or the drugs. It’s a me generation. I don’t sense that inner strength or fortitude generally, that willingness to overcome all obstacles. Everyone is telling kids they’re great or they’re OK when they haven’t accomplished a thing.
“My mission is to make a difference and I think our kids have responded. We’re doing it the right way. We’re all about character and integrity and having discipline and being unselfish. As I tell the kids, Chavez football isn’t about you it’s about us. And I think they’re buying into it.”
One definitely buying is Davonte’ Neal, one of the team’s marquee players and one of the top freshmen in the country.
“He teaches us about much more than just running a route or blocking and tackling,” Neal said. “He teaches us about life.”
Said Neal’s father Luke Neal: “I couldn’t ask for a better coach or role model for my kid.”
All good, but Rattay’s strength still may be his ability to survey situations and call just the right play, said longtime Arizona Republic sports writer Richard Obert.
Just last week in an overtime win over North Canyon (Phoenix), the Champions were constantly being blitzed and trailed 14-0.
“Chavez calmly came back because (Rattay) was calm and called some great plays including a couple long touchdown passes,” Obert said.
A 10-yard pass from Brandon Cluff to Neal in overtime won the game.
Even though most of his key players are juniors, Venturo’s team got off to an 8-0 start, the best in school history, before dropping the last two games late.
Neither coach is also that hell-bent on winning and losing because each has overcome serious health issues.
In 1992, Rattay developed a sinus infection that spread into his right eye, which was removed during Mesa’s playoff run. The morning of his emergency surgery, he left the hospital and attended his team’s state championship victory over Mountain View at Sun Devil Stadium.
“He was screaming and cheering (from the press box) the whole game,” Obert said. “The Mesa players dedicated the playoffs to Rattay and credited him with the championship.”
In the late 1980s, Venturo had a benign brain tumor that was removed but left one side of his face paralyzed, which causes slurred speech. It doesn’t ever deter him from getting his across ever. He’s won 181 games and even more respect.
This year’s team isn’t very big and there are no Division I kids among the seniors. But the camaraderie is tight and the cohesion long.
“They over-achieve because that’s exactly the type of player (Venturo) was,” Obert said.
High school coaches are largely the backbone of our youth. CoachSpeak honors them by featuring some of the top and most inspirational coaches in the country. If you have a good profile candidate or story about a coach, please contact Mitch Stephens at mstephens@maxpreps.com.
