Mark Patton: Former Tackle Football Coach Doug Caines Rallies Around Flag of a New Girls Sport | Sports

Doug Caines, former live wire of Friday Night Lights, has reconnected to the grid.

He’s ended a two-year hiatus from coaching to bask in the glow of Thursday nights with the newly formed Dos Pueblos High School girls flag football team.

“Always missed it,” the former head football coach of the Charger boys said.

The DP girls improved their record to 2-0 with Thursday’s 25-6 victory over Buena in the 7-on-7 competition.

The atmosphere at Scott O’Leary Stadium felt as electric to Caines as it ever did during the 15 seasons he coached tackle football.

“It was awfully special,” he told Noozhawk. “It was against a good team that had been practicing all summer, like us, and was ready to go.

“The juices were flowing. We had a veteran referee crew. It felt like a Friday night game even though it was Thursday. All the pieces to that puzzle were there.”

Although the Chargers had defeated Bishop Diego 26-0 the previous week, news about the new CIF sport of girls flag football had just started to spread on campus.

“DP showed up a little bit more for the second game,” Caines said, “and it was awesome to feel that energy.”

Mom’s Motivations

He was drawn to Friday Night Lights as a boy like a moth to a flame. His sports-minded mom, however, refused to sign him up for the Youth Football League.

“She was really resistant to my playing football,” he recalled. “I had to beg and plead freshman year … I had to beg and then get straight-A’s to stay on the field.

“And so I did.”

Caines also graded out well as an All-County offensive center for Santa Barbara High School’s Class of 2000. He earned All-Channel League honors during both his junior and senior years.

He followed that up with 15 more football seasons as a coach. He worked the first eight at his alma mater, which included a stint as head coach in 2012 and 2013. He also headed DP’s program for the last four seasons of his seven-year tenure with the Chargers.

The late Jo Ann Caines, who raised Doug and his sister, Annette, as a single parent, also guided thousands of children as both a teacher and administrator.

Her firm hand, charismatic energy and clever innovation rescued a struggling La Cumbre Junior High School when she took over as principal in 2005.

Santa Barbara Unified School District officials described her as “a rock-star educator” who had “a heart as big as life.”

“She was the oldest of four siblings, and my grandfather named her Jo because he wanted a boy,” Caines said. “So, unlike many moms, mine was a sports nut.”

Jo Ann’s father, local businessman Fred Slavin, had coached basketball at Santa Barbara City College during the school’s formative years. He later served as vice president of the Santa Barbara Dodgers Baseball Club when minor league baseball returned to town in the early 1960s.

Once, when I interviewed her about the enhancements she’d made with La Cumbre’s athletic infrastructure, she told me how much she enjoyed “watching Friday Night Fights with my dad.”

Jo Ann Caines was a fighter for youth who put sports in her corner.

“She really enjoyed coming out to the games and always understood the intricacies,” Caines said. “She wasn’t necessarily breaking down film, but she definitely had a higher acumen in football.

“I think she especially enjoyed my getting into the coaching field, knowing what that takes.”

Caines was Nate Mendoza’s defensive coordinator in 2017 when DP advanced to the CIF-Southern Section Division 10 final. His mom attended every game that season.

She died six months later at age 70.

Her son’s head coaching debut with the Chargers came on her birthday just two months later. DP beat Foothill High School of Santa Ana 31-24 while honoring Caines’ mother with the initials “JC” on their helmets.

“Talking to my sister,” Caines said at the time, “I told her it’s probably the most emotional day I’ve had in a long time.”

Finding a New Course

He encouraged his oldest daughter, Sierra, a 2020 graduate of Santa Barbara High, to try another interscholastic sport after she was cut from the Dons’ soccer team.

“It was too late to go out for volleyball, so she was like, ‘I guess I’ll just do P.E. soccer,’” Caines said. “I told her, ‘Babe, we don’t do just P.E.’

“So she wound up on cross country — it was about the only no-cut sport left for girls — and she actually turned into a fairly decent track athlete.”

He said some of Sierra’s best memories in high school came from her junior and senior seasons of track.

“It’s a testament to the gumption and toughness and work ethic that it takes, and all the other things that we know come from sports,” Caines said. “I’m a believer in sports, and it’s awesome now that there are more opportunities for girls to play sports.”

His youngest daughter, Laila, is now playing in the Friday Night Lights (FNL) youth flag football league.

“She was running around with our girls during their summer workouts,” Caines pointed out. “She’s in the third grade, but they’re running around having a lot of fun in that league.

“I don’t care what sport she plays, but I do want her to play because I believe in that institution for young people.”

Coach Caines also has long served the district as a media arts teacher. He transferred to Dos Pueblos from the faculty of Santa Barbara High in 2015.

His son, Dominic, was born in 2019. That prompted him to take a break from coaching after the football season of 2021.

“I needed to be there a little more specifically for my family,” he said.

“In a perfect world, I would’ve been able to make it all work. But as the father of my household, I did what was best for my family, and have zero regrets about that.”

Back to the Future

Caines had planned a return to coaching when Laila and Dominic grew older.

That timetable moved up when DP athletic director Dan Feldhaus mentioned the job opening in girls flag football.

“My wife, Nicole, and I had talked about what a return to football would look like for me,” Caines said. “This wasn’t quite the time that we had originally thought, but we felt this was a unique opportunity, and something I could fully commit to.

“What I didn’t want to do was come back and not be able to give the team everything they deserved. Once we looked at our schedules and the timing and the nature of it, we agreed that it was something I could do.”

Caines had been responsible for more than 100 athletes in three levels of boys tackle football — varsity, junior varsity and freshman. But DP fields just one flag football squad of 25 girls.

“There’s also no second-semester class for flag football since just about all these girls play other sports,” he said. “I love that they’re all multisport athletes.

“We’re going to send them back to lacrosse, and basketball, and soccer, and track-and-field in so much better shape.”

Senior Gianna Nichols, who has completed 28-of-41 passes for 326 yards and five touchdowns in just two games, is also a star for DP’s basketball team.

“She’s a point guard, so connecting a point guard to the position of quarterback made sense,” Caines explained.

Freshman Brooklyn Hedricks has emerged as her leading receiver with nine catches for 132 yards and a TD. She’s also returned an interception for a touchdown in both games.

Her father, varsity baseball coach George Hedricks, serves as an assistant on Caines’ staff with teacher Ryan Joy.

“Obviously, coaches’ kids have a higher pedigree of knowledge, but Brooklyn is also a phenomenal athlete,” Caines said. “Although she’s just starting school here, I know she did the summer soccer tryouts, and she’s also a softball player.

“Her play for us has been a real game-changer.”

Sophomore Katie Vongpanya is another young “elite athlete” on his team. And the Streatfeild sisters — sophomore Sterling and freshman Ruby — give him an “electric” pair of running backs.

“We’ve got a good mixture of underclassmen,” said Caines, who had to cut 25 players from his original turnout of 50.

“Sophia Pixley and Emily Raymond are both juniors and amazing track athletes who have been able to transition those skills to defense.”

Senior Moments

The Chargers’ stellar defense is fortified by a strong senior class led by Katie Peterson, a soccer star who has made a team-high 10 tackles so far this season.

It also features classmates Maddy Jones, a cornerback who also plays offensive flanker outside of Hedricks, and Taylor Hayes, a pass rusher whom Caines describes as “an absolute lightning bolt.”

Samantha Salcido, the daughter of Santa Barbara County schools superintendent Susan Salcido, is another savvy senior.

“Like Brooklyn, she’s made interceptions in both of our games,” Caines said. “She has the uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.”

His own experience so far is a validation that he is back in the right place at the right time.

“I get just as nervous and just as excited about the games as I used to,” Caines said. “I actually talk to the girls about that, about how, ‘If you’re not nervous, you might not care enough to be doing this, right?’

“The nerves are a reminder that you are invested.”

Although the CIF won’t sponsor playoffs during this first season of flag football, DP’s schedule is loaded with 12 games as well as a Saturday tournament at Hueneme High on Oct. 7 in Oxnard.

The Chargers’ homestand will continue at 5 p.m. Thursday with a game against Lompoc.

The back end of their season should have a playoff atmosphere with back-to-back rivalry games against San Marcos at home on Oct 12 and at Santa Barbara on Oct. 19.

The Royals are also 2-0 while the Dons improved to 1-1 with a 21-14, comeback win over Pacifica on Thursday.

Caines’ last victory in boys tackle football came against San Marcos in 2021. Jason Fowle, the Royals’ former varsity boys coach, will match wits with him again after his own redux in the flag version of football.

“Jason is doing a great job — they have something special going on,” Caines said. “We actually scrimmaged them. And to be honest, they put it on us a little bit.

“But our girls are looking forward to meeting them again.”

The beauty of all sports, after all, is the opportunity that comes with each new day.

The lights will be shining for them again on Thursday.