Carpinteria High alum Leonardo Quintero has been named the school’s new boys soccer coach,” Athletic Director Pat Cooney announced on Thursday.
Quintero a 1998 graduate who played varsity soccer and baseball for the Warriors, takes over a talent-rich program. He replaces Daniel Torres, who guided the team to back-to-back Tri-Valley League championships and three titles in the last four years and a CIF Division 5 runner-up finish in 2011.
Quintero was hired after an extensive search and evaluation process.
“After carefully going through the steps involved in hiring, Coach Quintero emerged as the candidate best fit to serve the student-athletes, the parents, CHS and the community of Carpinteria,” Cooney said in a statement.
Cooney is highly aware of the soccer program’s profile in the community.
“Coaching boys’ soccer at CHS is a big responsibility,” Cooney said. “The bar of performance and expectation is set very high. In addition to teaching skills and tactics, a coach is asked to be a communicator, an administrator, a disciplinarian, an advocate, and a mentor. Coach Quintero expressed an interest in delivering values and life lessons to the participants in the athletics program. His perspective has been selfless and cooperative while he clearly expects to achieve his own high goals for the program. We are confident that he will be able to give the student-athletes the structure necessary to give them the opportunity to succeed in high school and beyond, on the playing field and off.”
Quintero inherits a team that has several returning varsity players, players off a league-champion JV team and a group of freshmen that were on the Santa Barbara Soccer Club under-14 team that won a national championship during the summer.
After high school, Quintero played and had leadership roles in the central coast adult leagues and in Mexico.
