Cal Lee, who has been promoted to University of Hawai'i defensive coordinator for football, credits his mentor.

"The best coach I've had is my dad," he said of 91-year-old Thomas Lee Sr. "You know how you hear parents, after a game, saying you have to do this or that? He wasn't like that. He never raised his voice. He wouldn't be critical of the coach or the plays. I think I enjoyed football when I was young because he made it fun. After the game, you never thought about whether you won or lost. He made sure we were all upbeat."

Lee said his father taught him an approach that he now shares with his UH players. Thomas Lee emphasized visualizing every scenario before every play. A baseball right-fielder, for instance, needed to think about where he would throw the ball in specific situations.

"It really helped," Cal Lee said. "What do we tell the kids now? 'Know the down and the distance.' We always tell them to think ahead about what to do when the play comes to them."

It was Thomas Lee's calming advice that helped his son deal with the agony of victory.

Cal Lee was the head coach of a Saint Louis team that had the most dominant run in Hawai'i high school football history.

He led the Crusaders to 15 O'ahu Prep Bowl or state tournament championships. He retired as Saint Louis' head coach to join the Warriors as linebacker coach in 2003.

"I'd be lying if I said there wasn't any pressure (at Saint Louis)," Lee said. "There was. When you win, so many people expect you to win. And when I say 'expect you to win,' I don't mean five, six, seven games. They expect you to go to undefeated. At any level, that's hard."

Even when the Crusaders won, Lee said, "Somebody would say, 'What happened? It was only 20-10.' And when you lose, it's like the end of the world for some people."

But Lee said the pressure proved to be motivational.

"What happens is it makes you continue to try to get better," Lee said. "If you don't, you will lose, or you won't have a chance, I should say. Because we were winning, we would keep striving to improve. Tweak this. Tweak that. We couldn't sit back and say, 'Let's do it again.' It doesn't work that way. Pressure makes you work even harder than the year before."

And, as he learned from his father, "No matter what is happening, you try to be calm and come across to the players that everything is copasetic."

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.