There are coaches who win, and there are coaches who stay. In the High Desert, Leland Eudy did both.
Just not always in the way most people envision it.
Eudy, a lifelong pillar of the Victor Valley High School football program whose influence spanned generations of players, colleagues and rivals, died April 26, 2026. He was 72.
“Coach Leland Eudy’s name will forever be synonymous with Victor Valley football,” said Victor Valley Union High School District Board Member Jose Berrios, a longtime friend and colleague. “He leaves behind a legacy of mentoring and molding young student-athletes, both on and off the field. Our condolences go out to his family, friends and the countless others whose lives he impacted in a positive way.”
Mark Mora, who played for Eudy, coached alongside him and considered him a dear friend, also shared just how much he means to the high school.
“I went to high school here, and I’ve been teaching and coaching here for 25 years, and there’s nobody that I’ve come across that bleeds more green than Coach Eudy,” said Mark Mora. “He was just a diehard Victor Valley guy. He was a special guy. He’s going to be sorely missed by many of his players and colleagues.”
A life rooted in football
A 1971 graduate of Victor Valley High School, Eudy first made his mark as a lineman, the kind of player who understood the game’s grit before its glory. He carried that same style of play to Victor Valley College, where he continued along the offensive line.
Workmanlike, unflashy and essential.
By 1975, he was already giving back, beginning his coaching career at the college. A five-year stint on the Victor Valley High School staff soon after followed before he was handed the program in 1983.
It wouldn’t be his only turn at the helm. Eudy’s career became a series of step-downs, followed by eventual returns.
His four tenures: 1983-1987; 1990-1993; 2000-2009; 2010-2013.
“I’ll be done,” Eudy told the Daily Press after the 2013 season, ending his days at Victor Valley with a 7-4 record and a Desert Sky League title. “It was a great time to go out… I’m glad this is my last year because it’s a good group to go out with.”
But as those closest to him knew, Eudy was never really done. He returned again, but this time for three seasons at Riverside Prep.
Across those four tenures leading Victor Valley, and the late-career chapter at Riverside Prep beginning in 2016, Eudy compiled an 84-177-4 record.
On paper, it reads modestly.
To those who knew his coaching philosophy in the High Desert, it means something much more.
‘A man of the game’
“I’m an underdog guy,” Eudy once said. “Give me a guy that’s going to get his butt kicked, and I’ll try to keep him from getting his butt kicked.”
That philosophy defined him.
Not championships. Not accolades.
People.
Also his presence.
How a room shifted when he entered, how players listened when he spoke.
Mora ties that to Eudy’s “old school, blue-collar” demeanor. But but also deeply in love with the community he grew up in.
“There’s nobody I’ve ever come across that loved this place more,” Mora added.
That love certainly extended into the Bell Game rivalry with Apple Valley High School.
Eudy lived it as a player, helping Victor Valley win the 1970 Bell Game 14-6. He lived it as a coach, enduring losses, savoring victories and embracing the emotion that came with every meeting.
He went 5-17 in Bell Games as head coach, though the numbers hardly capture the intensity.
His first win came in 1986. A year later, he spoiled Apple Valley’s inaugural on-campus season with a 7-0 victory in front of 2,500 fans sitting in rented bleachers as Newton T. Bass Stadium was still a work in progress.
“It could have gone either way,” Eudy told the Daily Press in 2010 of that game, which was played on a Saturday afternoon on Nov. 14, 1987. “We were knocking the crap out of each other.”
His final victory over the Sun Devils came in 2009, a 20-17 win punctuated by trick plays and late-game execution.
To those on the other sideline, Eudy was equally respected.
Frank Pulice, Apple Valley’s head coach from 2000 to 2014, remembered a competitor who never let a heated rivalry override respect. No one quite remembers when, but Eudy and Pulice came up with an agreement that the players should shake hands prior to the game.
“It was probably him that came up with the idea,“ Pulice said. “But we never shook hands before the game and certainly not after. Shaking hands before allowed us to show respect to each other and after the game the winner can go on and celebrate with the bell.
“He was a man of the game,” Pulice added. “A class act and a good guy. That was a good man.”
Duality, toughness and care
Their battles were fierce. Their conversations, often years later in physical therapy sessions at Kinesio Physical Therapy, were warm.
“We’d just (reminisce) about the good old days,” Pulice said. “There was always respect between us and it was nice to get to know him a bit better.”
Inside Victor Valley’s locker room and his office, Eudy was just as passionate. Jeff Vanover, like Mora, a former assistant, recalled spirited debates over defensive philosophy.
Particularly Eudy’s loyalty to the old-school “50 defense,” a five-man front built to stop the run.
Even when he relented to modern schemes and four-man fronts to counterattack a spread offense, Eudy never lost his identity.
“The 50,” Vanover said with a laugh. “We argued constantly. Film sessions, chalkboard battles. It got heated. But we never left angry. It was always respect.”
Duality, toughness and care defined Eudy.
Players heard the yelling. They felt the accountability. But they also understood where it came from.
“Everything from him came from a place of respect,” Vanover said. “That tough love… that was who he was.”
And sometimes, who he was showed up in the smallest, most telling ways.
Mora remembers a moment late in Eudy’s life, after a surgery, when he couldn’t speak. A nurse brought him a popsicle.
You can guess why Eudy refused it and made the nurse bring a different colored popsicle.
Even then, even there in a hospital bed, he wouldn’t touch the color of his rival.
“That’s Eudy,” Mora said. “He loved that rivalry and hated the color orange.”
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Victor Valley’s Leland Eudy remembered for impact beyond wins on the football field
Reporting by Jose Quintero, Victorville Daily Press / Victorville Daily Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
