For the fourth time in four years, Tohopekaliga will have a new football coach.
On Tuesday, Athletic Director Lonnie Flores announced that Anthony Paradiso, who stepped down as Lake Nona’s longtime coach last week, would take over the Tigers program.
Paradiso replaces Jeff Higgins, who left after one 2-8 season.
“Our search committee came to the conclusion that Coach Paradiso was the right coach at the right time for our program,” Flores said. “He has a proven track record that he can not only win, but he can win on a consistent basis. Coach Paradiso has a great reputation for helping his players excel both academically and athletically. He has a quiet confidence about himself and has shown an outstanding ability to relate to the student athlete.”
In Paradiso, the Tigers are getting a proven winner. Coaching the Lions from 2011-2021, he led the team to a 72-43 record, winning one district title and making six post-season appearances. Lake Nona won seven or more games eight different times, including a 7-4 mark last year, with offenses known for being prolific passing attacks.
“I had 13 wonderful years at Lake Nona, but felt we reached a plateau there,” Paradiso said. “When this opportunity became available, I thought it was a great fit. It’s an opportunity to build a program at a relatively new school. As a long-time resident of St. Cloud, it also presented a chance for me to get back to Osceola County and contribute to the community. ”
His overall record as head coach is 86-61. Paradiso served as the Lions’ offensive coordinator from 2009-10. He was the head coach at Cypress Creek in 2008. He began his head coaching career at Crystal River in 2006. Taking over a struggling program that had won just five games the previous two years, Paradiso went 2-8 in his inaugural season, before taking the team to the playoffs in his second year and winning nine games.
Additional coaching experience in Orange County includes five years as offensive coordinator at Timber Creek, one season as wide receiver/quarterbacks coach at University High and a year as quarterbacks coach at Colonial High, his alma mater.
As a player, Paradiso played at Robert Morris College in 1995 before transferring to the University of South Florida, where he earned both his undergraduate and Masters’ degree.
Paradiso will be Toho’s fourth head coach in five seasons in 2022. Marc Deas guided Tohopekaliga to a 12-8 record in 2019-20, which included THS’ first playoff appearance (2020), before he resigned to become head coach at private Feltrim Academy in Haines City. Anthony Davis was the first head coach, going 2-7 in 2018, the school’s first season, before returning to his native Marathon in the keys to become the city’s recreation director.
Paradiso believes, despite the turnover the school has gone through, the potential exists to build a solid program like the one he left just seven miles up the road.
“We will do this in steps, starting with putting together a good staff and getting the kids back on board,” he said. “It’s going to be about establishing a culture, developing relationships, and creating consistency.”
It is the stability of Paradiso established at Lake Nona that Flores says Tohopekaliga needs the most. “More than anything, this is a successful head coach that was with the same program for more than a decade,” Flores noted. “We’ve had some success in the four seasons since we’ve been open but for different reasons we have not been able to keep the same head coach in position. Coach Paradiso has that staying power and hopefully this will be the last football coaching search we will need to conduct for a long, long time.”
