John Leijten

John Leijten (born 1 October 1965) is an American football coach and former player from the Netherlands. He currently Head Coach of the Dresden Monarchs and of the Australia national American football team, the Australian Outback.
He was born in Australia but grew up in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Leijten played as a linebacker for the Tilburg Sting from 1984-1986 and the Rotterdam Trojans from 1988-1990. In 1990 he stopped playing American football following an ankle injury.
Leijten's coaching career started as defensive co-ordinator at the Tilburg Steelers, who won Dutch national championships in 1991 and 1992 and made it to the playoff finals in 1994. From 1994 to 1999 he was Head Coach of the Vught Black Rhinos before moving to the Cologne Crocodiles in 2000 as defensive coordinator. The Crocodiles won the national championship German Bowl that year. Leijten's coaching skills were noticed by Jeff Reinebold, then coach of defensive backs and special teams at the NFL Europa Amsterdam Admirals. John Leijten joined Amsterdam in 2001 as running backs coach. He was linebacker coach of the Admirals teams that won the 2005 World Bowl championship, and made the championship final in 2006.
After the demise of the NFL Europa in 2007, Leijten returned to Australia. In 2008 Leijten organized football camps for junior players in Melbourne. He coached the Western Crusaders club side in Melbourne and Australia's national American football team, The Outback.
In 2009 Leijten acted as interim Defensive Coach to prepare the Aix-en-Provence Argonauts for the 2009 French playoffs. They reached the semi-final, where they were knocked out by the La Courneuve Flash.
In December 2013 it was announced that he had accepted the role of Head Coach for the Dresden Monarchs<ref name=Monarchs/> during the European season, returning to Australia in October 2014 to coach the Australian Outback.

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