07/15/2023
Coach Marcelino "Chelo" Huerta, Jr. as coach of the University of Tampa Spartans. The photo is from the Nov. 1, 1958 FSU homecoming game program against Tampa U. (His name is misspelled under this photo.)
Chelo Huerta was a born leader. The son of Cuban-American Ybor City cigar workers, he played football at HHS as an offensive linesman. Huerta called the plays, a job usually reserved for the quarterback.
After serving as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot and flying missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in WW2, Huerta was a standout two-way lineman for the University of Florida Gators during a time the players ironically dubbed the "Golden Era."
At 28, Huerta became the youngest head football coach and athletic director in the country when he succeeded Frank Sinkwich at the University of Tampa. After a highly successful 10-season career there, followed by shorter ones at Wichita State University and Parsons College, he compiled a 104-53-2 record.
After retiring from coaching in 1967, Huerta returned to Tampa and was a successful insurance agent for a year, but he didn't enjoy it. For the last sixteen years of his life, he was the executive vice president of the MacDonald Training Center, which assisted in the rehabilitation of handicapped children and young persons and developed methods to get them jobs in mainstream society.
