Persistence has finally paid off for UCLA alumnus Avery
Atadero.
As general manager and coach for the expansion team Staten
Island Xtreme, a member of the National Indoor Football League,
Atadero is finally where he wants to be. To say that he took a
circuitous, unconventional route to get his job would be an
understatement.
The highest level of football Atadero ever played was junior
college, and he didn’t come to UCLA to finish his degree
until he was in his 30s.
The son of a football coach, Los Angeles-native Atadero was
coaching his own Pop Warner team by the time he was in high school.
This began a seventeen-year coaching career that has taken him
across the United States and Europe.
For Atadero, coaching was part of the natural progression of
events. After playing high school and junior college football, he
came to the point where he knew that his playing days were
over.
“For me to excel at football, my desire took me into
coaching,” Atadero said. “Not all of us are built to
play football.”
He switched his aspirations, looking anywhere he could for
coaching experience. That he ended up coaching at tiny Doane
College in Nebraska shows the extent of his devotion. As if living
in Nebraska was not a big enough culture shock for the Southern
California native, Atadero had to pick up a second job to make ends
meet.
“I laid irrigation pipes in cornfields in Nebraska at
night,” Atadero said.
After Nebraska, he opted for a more exotic location, accepting a
head coaching job in the European Federation of American Football
in Italy. It wasn’t until two years ago, when he became coach
of the Tennessee Thundercats, an NIFL team, that he returned to the
United States.
One-year stints with the Thundercats and the Evansville Bluecats
have finally allowed Atadero to secure his ideal job ““
serving as both general manager and coach of the Xtreme.
Taking charge of an expansion team, Atadero is responsible for
recruiting an entire roster of players and fundraising to build a
new stadium. This is in addition to running practices and securing
sponsors ““ it is full-time job.
Atadero’s determination is also apparent in his academic
life. Before graduating from UCLA as a history student in 1996, he
had been away from school for 12 years.
“I left school to raise a family and joined the
service,” Atadero said. “But since I was from Southern
California, UCLA is where I always wanted to go.”
Though he lives on the East Coast now, he still exudes
enthusiasm toward UCLA.
“I’m a die hard Bruin fan,” said Atadero.
“I bleed powder blue.”
His opinion on this year’s football team?
“I’m a defensive man,” Atadero said.
“The twins are always fun to watch.”