The Prize of Pinole : Quaint Town North of Oakland Revered Elder Torretta; Now Gino Offers Tribute to His Dad

PINOLE, Calif. —  Even now, nearly three weeks after the big party, the handwritten sign sits against a second-story window above Antler’s Tavern.

“Gino Wins Heisman,” it reads. And there the sign will stay until the Torretta family, which owns the bar and the building, grows tired of seeing those magical words staring down on the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Pinole Valley Road.

It was some celebration that day. More than 125 people squeezed their way into Antler’s, enough to make the town’s fire marshal wince. They were there to honor one of their own, the local boy made good. Many of them watched him grow up. They saw him bag groceries at his father’s store, shook their heads when he broke both arms skateboarding, cheered him when he played at Pinole Valley High. And now they wanted nothing more than to share in his joy.

Fifteen minutes before the Heisman Trophy telecast was to begin at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York, someone in the bar began chanting, “Gino! Gino! Gino!” Moments later, the tavern windows rattled with those same words. So loud was the noise that kids on bicycles pedaled toward the entrance and tried to peer in.

At last it came time for the announcement. An envelope was opened. A name was read. Torretta’s name. He had won.

The Antler’s crowd erupted in cheers. They watched as the Miami quarterback, his lucky white socks clashing with a newly purchased dark suit, walked quickly to the podium where he was presented the 54-pound stiff-arming statuette. There on the TV screens they saw the pride on the faces of Torretta’s three brothers, Gary, Geoff and Gregg, and the tears in the eyes of his mother, Connie.

But the moment that mattered most occurred at the end of Torretta’s brief, but heartfelt, acceptance speech. After thanking the Downtown Athletic Club, his coaches, his teammates, his athletic director, his university president, the good people of Miami, his mom and his brothers, Torretta took a deep breath and, as his voice cracked with emotion and his lower lip quivered, said, “To my dad: Without him, I would not be here today.”

Back at Antler’s, bartender Eldon Allen, who had worked for Torretta’s father for more than 30 years, slipped quietly outside.

“I couldn’t hardly stand it,” Allen said. “Gino looks and acts so much like his father.”

Bill McCombe, another longtime family friend, had to leave the bar, too. Bawling like a newborn, McCombe drove to St. Joseph’s Cemetery in nearby San Pablo. Once there, he took out a T-shirt and placed it on the grave of Albert Louis Torretta, Gino’s dad.

The T-shirt is still there. On the front it says, “Torretta For Heisman.”

Al Torretta never saw his youngest son play a down of college football. He died Sept. 4, 1988, of a brain hemorrhage, and it is said that a part of Pinole died with him. And maybe a tiny part of Gino Torretta, too.

Al didn’t see Gino make his Miami debut as a redshirt freshman in 1989. He didn’t see Gino forced into the starting lineup when Craig Erickson broke a finger during the second quarter of the Michigan State game that same year. He wasn’t there when Gino’s four-interception day against archrival Florida State marked his one and only defeat as a Hurricane starter.

Since Al’s death, Miami has earned two national championships and, with a victory against Alabama in Friday evening’s Sugar Bowl, the Hurricanes could win a third title. What Gino would have given--the awards, the trophies, the rings--if his dad could have been alive to see any of it.

“I always felt bad for Gino,” said Connie Torretta, whose nickname for her youngest son is ‘Precious.’ “In his accomplishments, Al wasn’t there to say, ‘Good, boy.’ We raised our kids with the thought that you can do anything you set your mind to. With Gino, he’s received the best, achieved the best and made it all come true. But Al’s not here to say, ‘See, I knew you could do it.’ ”

It has never been easy for Gino to publicly talk about his father. But there he was, on national television, no less, proclaiming his love and admiration for the man who helped shape his life.

“It was something I had to do and something I wanted to do, no matter how hard it was,” Gino said recently.

Gino’s brothers still marvel at the Heisman speech.

“You always want to give something back to your parents,” said Gregg, who, along with twin Geoff, is six years older than Gino. “Gino just wishes (Al) were here. But I’m sure (Al’s) up there, looking down.”

If he is, he sees a town that still honors his legacy. There is talk of naming a street after him, which seems only right. After all, Al Torretta considered the people who lived in Pinole part of his family.

Al Torretta came here in the mid-1950s, when Pinole, located about 30 minutes north of Oakland, was nothing more than a one-stoplight town. Back then, it served as a bedroom community of sorts for the people who worked at the nearby Hercules Powder Plant, where dynamite was made. Every so often, there was an explosion powerful enough to shatter a window, a signal that something had gone very wrong at the plant. After each blast, so the story goes, children would ask their mothers if Daddy was coming home.

Al eventually bought a grocery store, as well as a converted gas station-turned-liquor store called Ye Old Pumphouse. He later built a small office building and bought Antler’s. He was a businessman, to be sure, but more than anything, he was a family man.

He would wake up early each morning and drive down to the grocery store, where he would make his sons’ lunches for that day. He made them all the same: maybe a pound of turkey on one sandwich, a pound of roast beef on the other. A candy bar. Some chips and two sodas. Then he would return home and take the boys to school. One day he found Gino’s lunch bag in the car.

“Gino,” he said, “I don’t make your lunch so you can forget it. You’re supposed to eat your lunch.”

“You gave me too much,” said the sometimes defiant Gino. “I just give it away.”

That was the last time Al ever made Gino’s lunch.

If Geoff couldn’t finish his paper route, Al loaded up the car and finished it for him. If Gary or Gregg needed a new baseball glove, Al got one. He had just one unbreakable rule: Every night, the entire family had to be home for dinner. Food would not be served until everyone was seated at the table.

Still, he was a softy at heart. Al Torretta couldn’t say no. When the town needed an electric scoreboard for the baseball field, Al donated one. He sponsored dozens of youth baseball, football, basketball and bowling teams. He used to make pancake breakfasts for coaches and players and pay for the feasts out of his own pocket.

One time McCombe, who was a coach for one of the CYO basketball teams, had to beg Torretta’s secretary to give him a bill for a pancake bash. McCombe sent a check to Torretta. A few days later McCombe received an envelope from Torretta. Inside was McCombe’s check. In tiny pieces.

“You talk to anybody in this town,” McCombe said. “I’ve never heard a bad word about that man. He was so special.”

When workers from the local sugar factory went on strike, it was Al who took several of them aside one day and began gathering cans of food for them.

“Al, I can’t pay for any of this,” one worker said.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Al, before sending each striking worker off with $50 worth of groceries.

Al Torretta used to tell people, “It’s a pleasure to serve this community.” And he meant it. So committed was he to this town, a town so quaint that there are still signs prohibiting horseback riding in the streets, that Al’s own mother would get upset.

“That’s enough, Albert,” she would say as her son wrote another check to the city.

Al loved his children, but he never spoiled them. They all worked in the store, and each one of them played football. Gary, the oldest, eventually played quarterback at St. Mary’s College and earned a short stay with the Rams. At one point, he coached Gino at Pinole Valley.

Gregg played wide receiver at UC Davis and Geoff played quarterback at Miami, where he served as a backup to Heisman winner Vinnie Testaverde.

Gino followed Geoff to Miami. He was skinny--nearly 25 pounds lighter than he is now--but he was good. Geoff, who now runs Antler’s, knew that much.

“After his freshman camp, he looked impressive,” Geoff said. “I remember thinking, ‘He’s gonna play here.’ ”

He did, but Al never saw him. One day after Miami’s 1988 season began, Al Torretta died.

“You would have thought the Pope passed away,” McCombe said.

At the funeral Mass for Al at St. Joseph’s Church, there wasn’t an empty seat to be found. The line of those there to pay respects stretched far beyond the church doors. Many were there to say thank you.

Gino was no different. In his own special way, he did what he could.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but after every touchdown pass he threw for Miami it seemed that Gino glanced upward. And last month--Nov. 14, to be exact--Gino did a little something special during his last home game at the Orange Bowl.

On the sideline that day was Gary, who approached Gino afterward.

“You know, it’s Dad’s birthday today,” Gary said.

Gino, who had written on his wristbands, Dad, smiled and said, “I know.”

He completed 16 of 23 passes that day against Temple for 221 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. The old man would have been proud, and prouder still when Gino won the Heisman.

“He’d be happy and he’d be proud, but he wouldn’t say much,” Gino said of his father. “He’d probably still treat me like I was his youngest kid. He wasn’t really one to talk much.”

Which, of course, sounds like a description of Gino.

“I’ve always grown up like that, trying to be like him,” Gino said. “He always used to say, ‘Bull . . . makes the grass grow green.’ That’s how I am. It’s a situation where I like to lead with my actions, just get the job done.”

Despite the best efforts of a snooty flight attendant, the Heisman now sits atop the bar-counter in the Torretta house. Had it been up to the Miami attendant, who didn’t know who Torretta was or what he had won, the trophy would have been checked in at curbside.

Instead, Torretta dragged it back to coach seating and kept it safe for the cross-country flight to Oakland. Once there, an apologetic flight crew meekly asked for an autograph as he left the plane.

His brothers and several friends chipped in and rented a limousine for his arrival. And the next day, the West County Times featured a front-page photograph of Torretta pulling the Heisman from his gym bag. That was about it for homecoming pomp and circumstance, although Vice Mayor Gretchen Mariotti has since declared the Heisman event “about the greatest thing that’s happened to Pinole.”

A parade honoring Torretta is planned for Jan. 16. So is a banquet. Teammates Micheal Barrow, Lamar Thomas and Paul Snyder have already said they’ll be there. Anything for Torretta.

Torretta had just one request for the parade organizers, which included McCombe: Could the autographed pictures he planned to sign perhaps be sold to benefit some of the local youth basketball and football leagues?

Could they? Are you kidding? McCombe couldn’t say yes fast enough.

Of course, it figures Torretta would do something like that. After all, like father, like son.