Greg Hansen: Is Cholla serious? U better believe it

Do you know what he did in 2010? He coached the Sahuaro High School boys soccer team to the state championship game and then applied to be the football coach at Cholla High School.

The Chargers had gone 0-10, 0-10 and 1-9 in successive seasons. That's 1-29 if your calculator can handle the smallest decimal points (.033). It's a football program that had gone 0-10 so routinely (1990, 1998, 1999) - losing games 90-7, 70-6 and 68-0 - that school officials must have wondered: What if no one applies for this job?

"Maybe I was a little naïve going in," Ruhf says now. "But I wanted to be a head football coach."

At dinner time Wednesday, Ruhf outfitted 26 Cholla Chargers and three coaches in their bright orange game jerseys, put them on a bus and gave the driver directions to the Doubletree Hotel. They almost seemed like interlopers, outsiders, at the annual Coaches for Charity Kickoff banquet.

Ruhf's Chargers arrived almost simultaneous to the Sabino Sabercats, who unloaded 48 players and seven coaches from their bus. The Sabercats have played in four state championship games and have gone 87-22 under coach Jay Campos.

"We have a lot of speed," Campos was saying, standing a few yards from the Cholla players. "We're really big. Our goal is to win the state championship."

That was about the time Ruhf was chasing his two daughters, Penelope, 5, and Gwyneth, 18 months, around the lobby. You might think that would be an inconvenience when you are on the marquee, one of four schools invited to the city's annual Kickoff dinner. But that's not Ruhf's way.

He was all smiles. He is as positive as the red cable on your car's battery.

You should read his Twitter account. He sends dozens of tweets/messages to his 26-man (or should it be undermanned?) team in the name of positive thinking.

Here's one: "Friday night is going to be so much fun. Enjoy these memories guys."

A year ago, Ruhf's second at Cholla, the Chargers went 1-9. When they finally won, beating Desert View to improve their record to 1-5, Ruhf said, "We expect to win every game."

Where does this exuberance come from? It comes from his alma mater, Sahuaro, which, conveniently, is Cholla's opponent in tonight's Kickoff Classic.

Ruhf played on legendary coach Howard Breinig's final two Sahuaro teams, 1993 and 1994, both of which reached the state title game. As a starting junior tight end, Ruhf was part of the '94 state co-champs, 11-1-1.

"I learned to win at Sahuaro," he says. "It's in my blood. I coached the (Sahuaro) soccer team to the state title game. We're going to win at Cholla, too."

The U's in Ruhf's name didn't stand for underdog in 2010, his first season at Cholla. The Chargers broke loose from their 1-29 streak and went 6-4. He was the Star's Coach of the Year (no kidding). It might've been the best coaching job by a Tucson football coach since Arizona's Dick Tomey went 12-1 in 1998.

"We went 1-9 last year, but I still felt we had it going in the right direction," he says. "The schedule was upgraded; a bit more difficult. Sometimes we'd take five steps forward and 10 steps back, but we're moving forward. We're going to win."

The big-name coaches notice Ruhf's work. Last February, at a coaching clinic at USC, Sabino's Campos and his staff looked across the field and saw the Cholla staff. Really? Since Hall of Fame coach Ed Brown retired at Cholla in 1987, the Chargers had gone through seven head coaches until Ruhf arrived, about one every three years.

You never saw any of them at the USC coaching clinic, or any big-time clinic, furthering their education. Even though Ruhf had no real budget and two young daughters at home, he found a way to get to the elite clinic in L.A.

"It tells me they are invested," Campos says. "They are getting better. They have more kids, and they are stronger. He's building something there."

Ruhf doesn't like it when Cholla is stereotyped as a bad neighborhood. It takes so long to change a reputation and, for his everlasting credit, he is willing to fight that battle.

"I wish people would come and see our school," he says. "We have great academics. We have been losing kids to Salpointe, Tucson and Pueblo. We need to stop that. I need to stop that. We have so much to offer. It's on me to show people what a good place Cholla is."

Ruhf posted an image of Muhammad Ali on his Twitter page. It said: "Impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion."

No one is saying it's impossible for Cholla to be good again - the Chargers reached the playoffs in 1988 and 2005 - but you have no chance unless your coach is committed and confident.

Tonight's game at Sahuaro, the beginning of Year 3 for Laurence Ruhf, should illuminate how far Ruhf's we-believe campaign can go.

"You know what? I look forward to these battles," he says. "I'm not afraid, and neither are my kids. I'm a coach who goes for it on fourth down. I take chances. We might be smaller in numbers and size, but there's not a kid on my team who is scared of this challenge. It's going to be so much fun."

That's "fun" with a "u."

At Cholla, that stands for Unbowed.