Now is the time for change.

Decatur Gators football received a new head coach, Leon Hatch -- a former offensive coordinator under John Meagher at Federal Way six years ago. He spent the past five years as the top man at Mount Tahoma.

Hatch manned the Thunderbirds into the playoffs last year, bringing that 4A school from a program with a record less than stellar when he started coaching there in 2001.

Mount Tahoma was winless the first two seasons.

"We knew we were starting at the bottom," said Hatch. "We had no program for the kids before high school in junior high. We had boys and girls club, but that was about it."

And that program, Boys and Girls Club, is not known for teaching kids how to play great football like say the Junior Football Leagues across the country that include the six to 14 year olds on the Federal Way Hawks.

Anyway, Hatch made things good in the end -- quite stellar -- somehow getting the T-Birds players to believe in themselves through those rough no-win times.

"The second year I coached we started 12 sophomores," said Hatch. "We didn't win a game but they played hard and we were in every game. Those kids set a tone."

Those sophomores set a tone for success because the bad times were then followed with much better times, including a progressively better and better record of 4-6 in 2004, 5-5 in 2005, and last year, in 2006, 6-4.

Now, Hatch is coming into a program that has been in a tailspin since making it into the playoffs in 2003. The Gators were 2-8 last year. Worse than that, of the 40-something players that started the season only 20 finished.

It was a combination of reasons why as captain Chase King, a running back, explained.

"We had guys that didn't make grades and others that didn't tough it out through the rough times (all the losses)," he said.

Grade check is so huge.

"Academically, I don't want kids grades to influence the outcome," said Hatch, who has boy-girl twins, Makai and Kiana, that are one year olds and also a seven-year-old Jaelin and a 10-year-old Isaiah.

You normally bring your kids out to your practices?

"No, but they have been out here before," said Hatch. "This is normal for me. My son, Isaiah, is going to be our ballboy (every change of possession he runs out the ball to the official in a game). My father-in-law is the stat guy, Curt Gilbert."

And there's more connections of family amongst Hatch's coaching staff who were running things beautifully in a recent defensive practice as he talked and talked about what he's going to do different for the Gators this year and the years to come.

"Nah, I don't need to be out there, I have a great coaching staff," said Hatch. "This is a defensive practice and they know exactly what they are doing."

The practice did look seamless, with players in pods doing things depending on a player's position. Let's give this practice an A plus.

Speaking of that...

Back to grade checks, it's one thing to say how one is going to emphasize grades and change things around for the positive of a team that was down to less than a second string per position by the end of a year. It is entirely another to actually change things.

Hatch changed things. Just how many players did not make grade check, which comes right before the playoffs, to note.

"Two," said Hatch. "One player withdrew from a class and ended up one class shy of having enough classes to be eligible and he did not need to have done that. He already had a scholarship to PLU."

The other player made a similar mistake.

"It was not because they failed," said Hatch.

Hatch has a lot of inexperience before him. That is a recipe for failure in sports. The Gators only have four starters on offense returning and three on defense. Let's mention quickly, too, that Hatch left the Thunderbirds program in good shape.

"I had all but one starter coming back this season," said Hatch. His old team will be in the hunt for the Narrows crown, he said.

So why did Hatch leave coming prosperity at Mount Tahoma.

"For family reasons," said Hatch. "I didn't want to leave them (Mount Tahoma) up in the air, so I left when I didn't have a job at any other school coaching football. I was a finalist for a K-M job, but I did not get that job. It was a little later that, lo and behold, this job at Decatur opened up. I was to the point where if I got out of football this year then that was it. I was not going to go back into it."

Hatch has been through a lot personally with his family.

Hatch's tough times included his twins being born early. They were supposed to be born Sept. 26 and they were born June 18.

"They were in the hospital for 109 days," said Hatch. "Their lungs were underdeveloped and other things. The (Seattle) Times did a story on them called 'The Miracle Babies'."

The players of Decatur that hope to develop under Hatch who comes in with a lot of miraculously good work done the last five years for the T-Birds football program, an inner-city program in a run-down school until the recent new school came three years ago.

And, let's face it, if this story started out all talking about the Gators players ... would most believe that suddenly this team would be coming back to 2003 playoff success from just completed 2-8, 2-8, 1-9, seasons the last three years?

No.

The coach is the change to this Decatur team, that's the good news. If success happens, sure the players will be the ones doing it on the field and they will be recognized for sure. But the coach is it. He, not to mention his newly all added-assistants, will be duly noted.

Of course, there are some good players back for the Gators, a few, as in seven in all, from both sides of the ball. And, around that perfect number of returners, so to speak, will come a season that could suddenly become perfection. Hey, from 40-something kids to 70-something bonafide football players, not counting freshmen, maybe a great miracle is in the works at Decatur.

"My quarterback is Cam Schilling," said Hatch. "He is a first-year quarterback but I have thrown a lot at him and he has been able to pick things up quickly."

Hatch had 25 players come to a Central Washington University camp with him, a solid core of players, in the middle of June, just a month after he was hired.

"By the third or fourth game, he (Schilling) was calling out his own plays. From that point on, I knew that kid was going to be a natural."

He has a natural quarterback body, being 6-4 and 190.

"He is a soccer player and a basketball player," said Hatch. "He has good feet, good hips, he is a strong leader."

Chase King speaks of the perfection of how a team, with a lot new can change all the old bad around, and, in a hurry.

"We have a whole new system," said King, who led the Gators with 10 touchdowns last year and is a captain on the team along with Schilling, Thomas Brown and Kyle Font.

"We have whole new players and we are coming out with more intensity."

Maybe the word "intensity" could be replaced with "hope," and that comes from Hatch.

Hatch knows football?

"Yeah, definitely," said King. "He knows the tendencies and strategies that different coaches have. He motivates people. He's getting the best out of people."

And this season looks like it could be a perfect record in the North? Is that realistic?

"I believe so," said Hatch. "There are a lot of other good teams but I think at our best we will compete with them, as long as everyone takes care of their responsibilities."

King then rattled off some names of teammates that will make an impact.

"We have Israel Kinlow 6-8, 350), a transfer from Federal Way," said Chase King. "We have Jared King (5-10, 220), a transfer from California. We have guys from last year like Trey McCurry, Thomas Brown, John Duncan and Tevin Tillman. Cam Schilling and I played b-ball together. He is a good leader."

So the season is upon us for the Gators and the rest of the teams in Western Washington and this year the Gators just may not be the doormat of the league. It did take Hatch a few seasons to transform the T-birds, to note. But let's ask, in closing, how quickly Hatch thinks change will come to the Gators season record outcome.

"Ha, ha, ha, you gonna make me do that," laughed Hatch. "Do I send a wrong message to the kids or do I send a wrong message to the public."

He paused, and then said, "I can't say a record necessarily. I want to compete for one of those playoff spots. There are three spots from the SPSL North. One of those spots, that is our goal."

The coaches under Hatch, who will be the offensive coordinator as well as head coach, include his defensive coordinator, Dion Alexander, whom Hatch brings with him from the T-Birds. He also has Fred Hardwell as the defensive line coach and Keith Jones at offensive line and Steve Brow coaching the receivers.