{"id":5247,"date":"2019-12-20T16:12:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T21:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=5247"},"modified":"2019-12-20T16:13:18","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T21:13:18","slug":"cesar-rivas-sandoval-named-fire-football-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/12\/20\/cesar-rivas-sandoval-named-fire-football-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Cesar Rivas-Sandoval Named Fire Football Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Southeastern University has hired Cesar Rivas-Sandoval as\nits new head football coach. He becomes just the second head coach in the\nhistory of the program.  
\n
\nRivas-Sandoval, 42, comes to Southeastern with 20 years of coaching experience\non both sides of the ball as well as on special teams, and includes time at\nNCAA Divisions I, II, and III institutions, and some experience at the\nprofessional level.
\n
\n“My wife, Jennifer, and our three daughters are beyond blessed to be\nrepresenting Southeastern University as its new head football coach,” said\nRivas-Sandoval. “My family is extremely excited to get started here at SEU\nwith our new Fire family.”
\n
\nMost recently, Coach Rivas spent six seasons at NCAA Division II Azusa Pacific\nUniversity, where he worked as the assistant head coach and defensive\ncoordinator. In three of the last five seasons, the Cougars were the Great\nNorthwest Athletic Conference champions, made two playoff appearances, and\nposted a 40-16 overall record.
\n
\n“I couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Coach Rivas to the Fire\nfamily,” said Southeastern University President, Dr. Kent Ingle. “His\nenergy is contagious, and I know he will continue to build out our program and\ntake us to a national championship level.” 
\n
\nOn defense, Rivas-Sandoval coached three Cliff Harris Award finalists over the\nlast five seasons. The Cliff Harris Award is given annually to the nation’s top\nsmall college defensive player.
\n
\n“We are excited about beginning a new chapter in Fire football,” said\nSoutheastern University Executive Vice President, Dr. Chris Owen. “We are\nconfident that Coach Rivas will continue our winning tradition.”
\n
\nDuring the summer of 2018, Rivas-Sandoval was a guest coach of the Canadian\nFootball League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, working with the defense. The San Diego\nnative has also been a part of the Bill Walsh Minority Fellowship working with\nthe Green Bay Packers and Miami Dolphins during two separate summers.
\n
\nRivas-Sandoval spent three seasons as a head coach and offensive coordinator at\nDivision II Fort Lewis College in Colorado. At Fort Lewis, he coached\nquarterback Tim Jenkins who passed for nearly 9,000 yards and went on to play\nfor the St. Louis Rams and the Calgary Stampeders professionally. On the\ndefensive side, he coached the program’s all-time leader in tackles in Phil\nO’Dell.
\n
\n“As I spent time getting to know Cesar, it quickly became clear to me that\nhe would be a perfect fit for Southeastern University football,” said\nDirector of Athletics Drew\nWatson<\/a>. “His experience is impressive, but what sets him apart is his\ndesire for him and his staff to build life-changing relationships with\nstudent-athletes. On the field, I am looking forward to watching our program\nflourish into a perennial national championship contender under his\nleadership.”
\n
\nAs a special teams coordinator at the University of Tennessee at Martin,\nRivas-Sandoval coached a punt returner and punter that both ranked in the top\n20 at their position in average yardage during the 2008 season. At Nebraska\nKearney, the kick return unit ranked fifth nationally and the kick return\ndefense was 14th nationally.   
\n
\nIn all, five players that Rivas-Sandoval has directly coached have gone on to\nplay professionally in either the NFL or CFL. Five players he has coached have\nbeen named conference player of the year, and six have earned All-American\nstatus.
\n
\n“A special thank you goes to Southeastern University’s President Dr. Kent\nIngle, Executive Vice President Dr. Chris Owen and Director of Athletics Drew Watson<\/a> for their\nbelief and trust in me to lead what I know is an amazing group of young men\nrepresenting Fire football, Southeastern University, and the Lakeland\ncommunity,” said Rivas-Sandoval. “I would also like to thank Azusa\nPacific University, Head Coach Victor Santa Cruz, Athletic Director Gary Pine,\nand our entire APU Football community for their love and support over these\npast six years.”
\n
\nRivas-Sandoval takes over a program that has won four conference championships\nin its first six seasons of competition and has made two NAIA Football\nChampionship Series appearances. The Fire went 8-1 during the 2019 season and\nhad 16 All-Mid-South Sun Division players.
\n
\n“Coach Keith Barefield and the rest of the Fire football staff have done\nan amazing job of building what is now the premier place to receive a\nChrist-centered college education, while playing an exciting, high level of\ncollege football in Florida,” said Rivas-Sandoval. “I look forward to\ntaking what has been established and continue to build, alongside our Lakeland\ncommunity, a football program focused on transforming lives through our faith,\nwhile building life champions on and off the field.”
\n
\nCoach Rivas will officially be introduced at a press conference on Monday,\nJanuary 6, 2020, at 2:30 p.m. in the Buena Vida Auditorium on the university’s\ncampus. The event is open to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southeastern University has hired Cesar Rivas-Sandoval as its new head football coach. He becomes just the second head coach in the history of the program.   Rivas-Sandoval, 42, comes to Southeastern… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"20","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seu-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}