Ledwith Leads New Football Season

 Head Coach Kelly Ledwith, 37, has over 15 years of coaching experience under his belt, but the Corsair football team is the first team he's served as a head coach. Ledwith has worked with his staff over the last year to turn the possibility of competing in this year’s fall season into reality, as there was no fall season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Santa Monica College Corsairs Kelly Ledwith, the Head Coach, gives a post game interview with Corsair staff on September 18, 2021 at Santa Monica College located in Santa Monica, Calif. (Jon Putman | The Corsair)

While players on the team hope to raise a championship banner in the Corsair Gym by the end of the season, Ledwith has emphasized how much of a joy it has been simply to see the team play.

“We were gone for so long that every day on the field is a good day,” said Ledwith. “Even if we’re not making the strides that we wanted to, we’ve made more strides than [we] made last year.”

Ledwith grew up in San Jose, Calif. and played various sports up until after high school. Opportunities to play football at local community colleges were present but he decided to attend Fresno State and join the coaching staff as a student-assistant in 2002. This would mark the start of his coaching career.

Ledwith's time at Santa Monica began in spring 2017, two years after his five-year run at Western State Colorado University as defensive coordinator. He joined SMC’s coaching staff as a part-time defensive coordinator after seeing a posting for the position online.

Head Coach Kelly Ledwith of the SMC Corsairs looks out at his players, after a 43-22 loss to Pasadena City College, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, Santa Monica, Calif. (Grace Wexler | The Corsair)

Ledwith describes his road to becoming the head coach as tricky. He was named interim-head coach during the third week of the fall 2017 season after SMC decided to let go of the previous head coach. Ledwith would remain the interim-head coach through fall 2018. During this time, he applied to be a full-time faculty instructor and head coach and was officially hired in February 2019.

Although the prospect of playing an entire season this fall is thrilling, Ledwith’s goal for the team is for them to get better each day and to take their season one week at a time. Ledwith encourages all of SMC to show up on game days to support the program and its players this season.

“If you get to know them, you can't help but root for them." said Ledwith when speaking about the players on his team. “My hope is that more people get to see some of these young men and get to meet some of them over time this semester.”

The team livestreams its games on twitch for those unable to attend. Their channel name is smccorsairfb. As of publication, SMC’s next game is against West LA College on Saturday Oct. 2 at the Corsair Field at 1 p.m. The rest of the team's schedule can be found on the Corsair Athletic webpage.