El Capitan’s Souza receives prestigious athletic director honor

El Capitan High School has had a lot of success in its first two years of varsity competition. The Gauchos have won 11 Western Athletic Conference championships and probably will add a couple of more this spring.

People have noticed.

El Capitan’s Lou Souza will receive the Norm McKenzie Award on Saturday at the California Schools Association of Athletic Directors Conference in San Diego. The award goes to the most outstanding new athletic director in California.

“He’s done an amazing job,” El Capitan principal Anthony Johnson said. “He brings a lot of years of experience of running a sports program. He’s done a tremendous job of bringing in coaches that share his vision. He’s a big part of everything we do at El Capitan.

“He’s the moral compass for our campus. He’s a big reason our kids work hard, play hard, take academics seriously and do things the right way.”

The former longtime Merced High baseball coach became the athletic director when El Capitan opened three years ago. The Gauchos will finish their second season in the Western Athletic Conference this spring before moving up to the Central California Conference next season.

“We’ve had some success early,” Souza said. “The Western Athletic Conference has been a really good conference. Sometimes, you can get caught up in the enrollments, but there are some really good teams in the WAC.

“Next year will be our first year with four true classes because we inherited classes when we opened. Combine that with us entering the CCC, and it’s like: ‘Ready or not, here we come.’ ”

Souza feels any success he’s had as an athletic director results from advice from other ADs in the area. As soon as he became the AD at El Capitan, he picked the brains of counterparts such as Scott Winton of Livingston, Scott Wine of Buhach Colony and Paul Hogue of Merced.

“With us moving to the CCC from the WAC, that’s 12 to 13 athletic directors I’ve been able to tap into,” Souza said. “I’m still new to the position. I’m still learning. That’s what this job is about. It’s something where you learn as you go.”

One thing Souza wanted to do was replicate the culture from Merced.

“We wanted to have coaches who want to develop a tradition,” Souza said. “I want coaches who have a passion for kids and who want to develop a culture of winning.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 6:44 PM with the headline "El Capitan’s Souza receives prestigious athletic director honor."