Mentored by coaching royalty, Hallandale’s coach looking to restore once proud program

Joshua Bush remembers it like it was five minutes ago.

It was actually a year ago at this time. Bush had just recently been named the new head football coach at Hallandale High School.

Coming off a season in which the team played an abbreviated five-game season in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, he was determined to get the Chargers back on the right track.

“When I had that initial meeting with the kids, 33 of them showed up and I introduced myself and talked about our upcoming practices,” said Bush. “Next thing I know, three days later the first day of practice arrives and only three kids are there. I’m thinking like ‘was it something I said?’”

Bush eventually found out it had nothing to do with what he said.

“Turns out the coach who didn’t get the job was mad and apparently took a bunch of the kids with him,” Bush said. “After that, the rest of them scattered to other schools and just like that, I was literally starting from scratch. A team with three players.”

And just like that, a once proud football program was virtually non-existent. Just six years before, it was a program that had made a historic deep playoff run to the regional finals, led by now Baltimore Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley and Buffalo Bills running back Zack Moss.

But once they graduated along with an accompanying talented senior class and head coach Dameon Jones left for Chaminade-Madonna (where he has since led the Lions to six consecutive state championship games), the slide began. Hallandale hasn’t been back to the postseason, or had a winning season for that matter, since.

Then came “the bottom” last August when Bush had his roster of three. Thus it was no shock when the Chargers were forced to cancel their first three games of the 2021 season.

“We just simply did not enough kids to even field a team,” said Bush who then took to coaching football the old fashioned way – hit the school and start trying to pull kids out of the hallways. “The kids in the school started hearing about what was going on so we wound up pulling them out of the hallways. Some of them had always wanted to play but never confident enough. But now they knew they’d be able to get on the field and compete.”

Eventually Bush found enough players to at least field a team. But as romantic as that sounded, this group was nowhere near ready for the challenge in front of them. The net result was an ugly, shortened six game season in which they not only lost every game but were mercy-ruled in all six, being outscored by a combined 310-26.

“It was rough but we knew it would be rough going in because we had so many raw kids,” said Bush. “But even though it wasn’t much fun, I found a bunch of kids that kind of started bonding and developing a closeness. That’s when things could’ve got one of two ways. Everything either splinters and comes apart or you find a bunch of kids who dig in and fight.”

One of those three kids that showed up for practice that day last August was junior cornerback/wide receiver Raynaldo Narcisse who stuck it out the entire 2021 season and chose to fight. Now he’s back for his senior year along with 32 other players on a rebuilt roster.

“The reason I stayed was I love a challenge,” said Narcisse. “Nobody likes to lose but one good thing is that you can then show everybody how you can come back fighting. Last year was tough for sure, it felt like we played a hundred games, but we stayed determined. I embrace adversity and love a challenge. I’m not sure if any team has worked harder than us and this season we’re going to get it done. We’re taking a lot of pride in working our way back.”

Narcisse also said the loyalty had a lot to do with Bush as well.

“I stayed because of the coaching,” he said. “Coach (Bush) doesn’t just coach. He actually gets out there and practices with us. Runs with us and everything. He gets right down in the dirt with us and you have no idea how fired up that gets us.”

It’s a job that many coaches, after enduring what Bush did last season, might have run from to chase greener pastures. But Bush said he isn’t wired that way. And for good reason.

He comes from coaching royalty.

As a high school player at Northwestern, he was part of the Bulls’ first ever state championship team under Willie Goldsmith in 1995.

Also on that staff? How about current Northwestern coach Max Edwards (three state titles), former Miami Central coach Roland Smith (seven state titles and now with Mario Cristobal at the University of Miami), Tim “Ice” Harris (now back at Booker T. Washington having won multiple state titles) and, just for good measure, former Louisville and Appalachian State offensive coordinator Frank Ponce, now with Cristobal at UM as well.

He went on to play collegiately at Western Michigan before playing 14 seasons professionally in the Arena Football League. Eventually he wound up coaching under Smith and Edwards at Central and Northwestern, winning a couple more state titles.

Asked if he leaned on his old mentors for a little advice after dealing with the rough waters, Bush nodded his head.

“I talked to Max (Edwards) a little,” said Bush. “He just told me to stay the course, keep pushing and to stay in the fight. Not to let it break you. That this is where you plant the seeds and build something special. To give your kids a good look at life as well. That life is like this sometimes. Sometimes you’re up and other times you’re down on the ground. You have to fight your way out and now I’ve got kids that are finding a way to fight.”

And fight they will have to in a loaded District 12-2M which includes two-time reigning state champion Cardinal Gibbons, five-time state champion Plantation American Heritage and Stranahan.

Hallandale, with 34 kids on the roster when the first day of practice was held, will host Westland Hialeah in its season opener on Aug. 26.

“We know we’re still the underdogs and will approach it like nobody is even giving us a shot to win a single game,” Bush said. “Forget about playoffs or state championships. We know that’s off in the distance. Right now it’s about continuing to instill in these kids, that Hallandale football is on the way back and that nobody will running clock them again.”