For the longest time Saint Louis School football was defined not just by its championships but by its steady continuity, the two going hand in hand.

It is what separated Saint Louis from any number of high schools with regular turnover in head football coaches. Places where, you'd almost swear, the office came with a revolving door and velcro name plates.

But not Saint Louis.

Until recently, perhaps. Now, if a new head coach is announced for the fast-approaching season — nothing announced but something a lot of people have come to speculate upon — it would be the fourth change in seven years and first departure from the Cal Lee lineage.

All of this at a place that has won 11 games in three of the last five seasons. The Crusaders haven't slumped to finish a season within three games of .500 since the price of gas was under $1.50 per gallon. Even in their worst years, the Crusaders are usually the second- or third-best team in the state.

Yet here it is a month before the start of preseason practice and the drama surrounding the Saint Louis job is thicker than the plot of a summer movie. And, as topic No. 1 in high school football at the moment, it gets more so by the day.

Delbert Tengan, who is in his second go-around with the Crusaders, is the coach for 2008. He is poised to start a fifth consecutive year having taken the Crusaders to back-to-back state title games. But, given recent developments, he's probably not ordering new stationary by bulk.

Not when Ulima Afoa was named the new athletic director earlier this week. A Saint Louis alumnus with wide-ranging experience and reputation for a no-nonsense approach to discipline, Afoa is a good, solid pick as AD.

But there is also a resume that can't help but make you wonder if the administration might have another shoe to drop. If not now, then possibly down the not-too-distant road — especially if Tengan's heart is with basketball, which he also coaches.

Could Afoa, who coached at Kamehameha Schools-Hawai'i for four seasons and a college assistant for a decade, end up wearing two hats at Saint Louis, those of AD and head football coach simultaneously?

It would not be the first time, of course. Lee held both posts by the end of his record-setting 20-year reign at Saint Louis. The dual role helped the school to better compensate him.

Lee, the winningest football coach in state prep history, has, as expected, been a tough act to follow. So much so that the Crusaders have won just one state championship in the six years since his departure for UH. The way underdog Leilehua took the 2007 game away from the Crusaders might have been the most frustrating chapter among them for Saint Louis fans.

For a football program that usually doesn't find drama until the postseason, this preseason is packing plenty.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.