Ex-Coach’s Fatal Crash Stuns Friends, Family

ANAHEIM —  Flags were flown at half-staff Friday as family, faculty members and students mourned the death of a popular high school football coach and counselor who was killed in an auto accident in Santa Fe Springs.

Family and friends speculated that John F. Hangartner, 54, may have suffered a heart attack while he was driving along the San Gabriel River Freeway Thursday night.

His car careened off the freeway and was struck by an oncoming train. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“It’s been a very devastating day around here,” said Tom Wallace, a longtime friend and athletic director at John F. Kennedy High School in La Palma, where Hangartner had coached football for 22 years. “He was absolutely kid-oriented.”

On Friday, Wallace and other administrators from the school district scrambled to field phone calls and comfort Hangartner’s wife, Janel.

“We are all just shocked,” Janel Hangartner said from her Anaheim home. “When he left his mother’s house, they were all laughing and talking.”

Hangartner was one of the most successful high school coaches in the county, but retired when he suffered a heart attack in 1987.

He went on to become a full-time counselor for the Anaheim Union High School District, first at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, then at Garfield West continuation school in Buena Park.

At Garfield West, where he had counseled troubled students since October, those who knew him or were taught by him praised his ability to reach young students and change their lives.

“He would never talk at you--he would talk with you,” said Kim Barrette, 17, a student in Hangartner’s Careers class. “He was always really open and able to motivate you. But he never tried to push his own views on you.”

Garfield West Principal Steve Castillo said Hangartner quickly endeared himself to students after transferring to the continuation school.

“The kids loved this man,” Castillo said. “I don’t mean ‘like,’ I mean they really loved him.”

Garfield West students learned about the accident Friday morning when Castillo announced it over the public address system.

“I just started crying,” said 16-year-old Briget Bordeaux. “It shatters you . . . when you think that he’ll never walk into class again.”

Hangartner’s success as a counselor came after he had earned a reputation on the gridiron, both as a player and a coach.

As a Hoover High School quarterback in Glendale, Hangartner won CIF Large Schools division Player of the Year honors in 1954.

“He was like a mentor to me,” recalled Bryan Swanson, who was a sophomore on the Glendale team when Hangartner was a senior. “He kind of took care of me in some rough times.”

Hangartner went on to Arizona State, where he helped take the college football team to an 11-0 record and a No. 11 national rating in 1957.

But he turned his back on a possible professional athletic career to take a job in the Anaheim Union High School District right out of college, Wallace said.

He started at Western High School, then coached football at Anaheim High. When John F. Kennedy High School opened, he took the head coach position and compiled a 122-63-6 record from 1964-83.

Eight of his teams made the Southern Section playoffs and his 1971 squad won the 3-A division championship.

“It was his ability to touch kids,” Wallace said. “He was an excellent motivator on the field. He got the best out of everyone.”

Indeed, friends said, one of his favorite lines was: “I want you to have character. I don’t want you to be characters.”

When Hangartner transferred to Magnolia High School, he coached his son, John Jr. His Magnolia teams went 7-3 in 1985 and 2-7-1 in 1986, but Hangartner had to step down midway through the 1987 season after suffering a heart attack.

Family and friends believe that it may have been a heart attack that caused the accident Thursday night.

Hangartner had been visiting his mother, Adelle, in Glendale. He was driving southbound on the San Gabriel River Freeway when his car suddenly swerved out of control, California Highway Patrol Sgt. James Roberts said. He added that there were no witnesses to the accident.

Hangartner’s car then flew off the freeway about 75 feet in the air, cut through bushes and trees and landed upside down across a set of railroad tracks, Roberts said.

“I don’t think anyone would have survived in that vehicle,” Roberts said, adding that the top of the car was crushed.

It was unknown how long the car had been on the tracks. But at 8:57 p.m. a slow-moving train came around a bend and struck the car, pushing it along the tracks for about 200 feet before the engineer was able to stop the 34-car train, Roberts said.

Roberts said investigators did not believe the accident was alcohol-related. He also added that there was no indication another car was involved.

A news clipping that detailed Hangartner’s 1987 heart attack was found at the scene, Roberts said.

Hangartner is also survived by his children, Debbie Martinez, 29, Dede, 24, and John Jr., 23; a sister, Norma; a granddaughter, Melissa, 4; and a son-in-law, Greg Martinez, 33.

Wallace said that in lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to a scholarship fund, administered by Kennedy High School faculty, for Hangartner’s grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were pending.