Preps

His competitive spirit is fierce

Dale Caparaso, now leading Brandon's defense, keeps the intensity level cranked up.

By JOEY KNIGHT, Times Staff Writer
Published November 8, 2007

BRANDON - Linebackers and livestock have long enjoyed a peaceful coexistence at Brandon High. Gaze to the west side of the Eagles' practice field, behind E.F. McLane Stadium, and you'll see a handful of cattle grazing in a modest pasture.

It's from the east side where the daily stampede arrives - in a bright orange Mustang GT. It barges through the chain-link gate, bringing a bull-rush of attitude and trampling any hint of monotony. For the better part of two hours, the reverberation of its sandpaper voice - New England in accent and New York in brashness - stomps out meek psyches and coaxes positive reps from Eagles defensive players.

Who called for a water break?! ... Get your hats back on!

Whoa, that's a delay of game on the offense. ... Push 'em back 5 yards!

"He can't talk to you calm," Eagles two-way star Samir Baker said. "That's just Coach Cap."

Indeed, Coach Cap, former Pasco football coach Dale Caparaso, has found a new china shop in which to roam. And the Eagles are gleeful over the glass fragments.

"They love him," Brandon second-year coach John Lima said. "He makes it fun for 'em."

For anyone who followed Caparaso's four turbulent seasons in Dade City, a rhetorical question: Did you really expect him to fade away quietly?

Less than five months after leaving Pasco in the wake of his second straight losing season and great unrest among the fan base, Caparaso was hired by Lima as Brandon's defensive coordinator.

Since then, the football lives of Brandon and Caparaso have enjoyed a concurrent resurgence. The Eagles, winners of three games in 2006, are 7-2 and Class 5A, District 7 champs.

Cap's defense, a smorgasbord of formations and rotations that posted three consecutive shutouts in the regular season, has been key to the turnaround. Lima acknowledges the defense, and weekly defensive game plans, are all Cap's.

"The kids pick up his intensity," veteran Eagles defensive backs coach Terrell Williams said, "so he picks up their intensity."

Yet what players and fans see is only Cap's brazen surface - bold and boisterous as ever. It's what antagonized Pirates fans in the past, and endears him to the Eagles today.

The way it used to be

Cap's fresh start has been accompanied by a fresh perspective. He says he has "done more teaching and coaching this year than I have probably in the last eight, nine or 10 years combined."

He also suggests that, in pursuit of winning, he compromised some of his standards at Pasco. The Pirates went 20-21 in Cap's four years, failing to make the playoffs his last two. The final pair of seasons included a postgame skirmish against Land O'Lakes, the ejection of a Pirates assistant for unsportsmanlike conduct, perceived leniency toward some players and a glaring dissipation in booster support.

"The final few months in Dade City were humbling, to say the least," said Caparaso, who arrived at Pasco in 2003 after winning four state titles in 12 seasons at Bellingham (Mass.) High.

"... I've always been, I think, a very discipline-oriented coach. All in the name of winning and being successful, I let a little of that slide (at Pasco)."

If there's any animosity toward Pasco, Cap barely reveals it. He still lives in Dade City, and arrived at a recent Eagles practice wearing a black Pirates football T-shirt. He also attended the Pasco-Zephyrhills game last month when weather forced it to be played on a Monday.

The only hint of resentment toward his former program comes when Cap is asked if his son Zach, a Pasco senior basketball player, played football for the Pirates this year.

"No, I would not allow that," said Cap, who teaches physical education at a Brandon alternative school. "If he played football, he was going to move here."

Get him started on the Eagles defense, and his introspection quickly segues into unabashed praise of his unit.

According to Cap, Brandon rotates eight defensive linemen and six linebackers. Additionally, he describes cornerbacks Tyrone Comer and Dominique Lee as "pure, 100 percent lockdown corners."

"We've sat kids for games and we've sat kids for quarters above and beyond what our rules are," Caparaso said.

"And some of that, I think, has to do with the fact that when I was up (at Pasco), I kind of lost a little bit of that. It's amazing that when you do that and stick to what you really believe in, there are other kids on the football team that pick up the slack."

Cap doesn't mask his desire to be a head coach again. Before landing at Brandon, he applied for or inquired about several vacancies, including those at Hernando, Lakeland Kathleen and King. But he insists that desire shouldn't be construed as discontent.

"I said in the spring ... when I was in my search to become a head coach after the Pasco thing, that if I had to finish second, Brandon was the best second place that I could finish," Cap said.

"And I kind of said that halfheartedly. It's at a point right now where, shoot, if I have to be an assistant coach, I'll stay here with (Lima) under the current situation forever."

Joey Knight can be reached at (813) 226-3350 or jknight@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 8, 2007, 00:13:17]