Wolfe Resigns as Titan Men’s Gymnastics Coach

FULLERTON —  Cal State Fullerton men’s gymnastics Coach Dick Wolfe, tired of the constant struggle to keep the program alive and competitive, announced his resignation Monday, bringing an end to his 23-year Titan coaching career and, possibly, to the men’s gymnastics program.

Wolfe, 51, the only men’s gymnastics coach the school has ever had, will accompany two Titan athletes to the NCAA Championships April 19-20 at Penn State. His resignation is effective May 31, after which he’ll devote his energy to a job as personal trainer with the Laguna Health Club in Laguna Beach.

Wolfe guided the Titans to College Division NCAA championships in 1971, ’72 and ’74 and, after moving up to Division I-A in 1975, Fullerton made five NCAA Championship Meet appearances, finishing as high as eighth in 1976.

But the past four years have been marked by budget cuts and discussions of discontinuing the program. The school considered proposals to drop the sport in 1988 and 1990.

The men’s gymnastics program survived, but Wolfe had his $60,000 salary cut to $33,000 this year, and his total operating budget had been reduced to $5,000--not even enough to fund one full scholarship.

For several months last year after the salary cut, Wolfe, a father of three, worked as a janitor and gardener at a Laguna Beach mall, beginning work at 5 a.m. every morning, to supplement his income.

“I’ve never soured on coaching because I love working with people,” Wolfe said. “But the last few years, with the economic problems and the lack of administrative support, it’s been really hard.”

The inability to run a high-level program frustrated Wolfe, who was often at odds with former Fullerton Athletic Director Ed Carroll. After working a year at half salary, Wolfe felt remaining at Fullerton wasn’t in his best interests, financially and emotionally.

“Circumstances beyond my control have led me to the conclusion that to continue as coach could only result in further physical and emotional perdition to me; with concomitant influences on my wife, children and this university I love so much,” Wolfe wrote in his letter of resignation.

Wolfe, the dean of Fullerton coaches, also sent personal letters to other Titan coaches, describing the past few years as an uphill battle.

“A couple of times I’ve reached the top of the hill only to find not a light at the end of the tunnel but, rather, someone much larger than I with a two-by-four,” Wolfe wrote.

” . . . My action (to resign) came after serious consideration, tantamount to, ‘Which child should I give up for adoption?’ ”

Lynn Rogers, Fullerton women’s gymnastics coach, described Wolfe’s resignation as “the end of an era.”

It could also signal the end of men’s gymnastics at Fullerton.

Five of the nine members of this season’s team are seniors, and Wolfe has not received commitments from any gymnasts for next year. The Titans don’t belong to a conference, crowds for meets have been dwindling, and a new coach with a part-time salary would have to start virtually from scratch.

“I think there was more support for Dick the last few years than for the program,” Rogers said. “With Dick gone, the program is in jeopardy. With our budget problems and Dick resigning, it opens the door for them to do what they’ve wanted to do.”

Steve DiTolla, Fullerton’s interim athletic director, said administrators would decide between now and May 31 whether to continue the program. “I would assume there would be a team,” DiTolla said.

Asked if he was confident men’s gymnastics would survive, Wolfe said, “I’m not real confident of anything at Fullerton.”

If the sport is retained, Wolfe said he will recommend Doug Vaneveran, a Titan gymnast in the early 1980s who is now the coach at West Point, as his replacement.

“I’ve talked to him and he’s interested,” Wolfe said. “But what they do remains to be seen.”

Wolfe, the curly-haired coach with an off-the-wall sense of humor, said his most cherished coaching memory is of his 1971 team, which won the national title in Chicago.

The school wouldn’t pay for the trip, so Wolfe flew the team there using his own credit cards. Gymnasts stayed in a $2.50-a-night YMCA on the South Side and rode to and from the competition in the back of a rented U-Haul, sitting on milk crates.

The Titans, in only their third year of existence, pulled off an upset at the meet, and Wolfe was named NCAA coach of the year. Wolfe earned the honor again in 1972 and ‘74, when Fullerton again won national championships.

Wolfe coached 64 All-Americans, including Li Xiao Ping, a 1984 Olympian for the Republic of China, but his most cherished teaching memory, he said, will be of a cerebral palsy victim he taught to walk after months of 90-minute-a-day sessions.

“A long time ago, I decided I would coach until I die, and I used to joke that my blood was on these walls and I’d die in the gym,” Wolfe said. “The only thing that’s changed is I’m not going to die in the gym--unless I die in the next couple of weeks.”