Hall of Fame: Bob Packer (Costa Mesa)

Richard Dunn

The late 1960s and early ‘70s meant difficult times at Costa Mesa

High, which went through four principals in five years and won about as

many football games in that span.

Not that football was nearly as important as some of the social chaos

on campus, but going 1-17 in back-to-back autumns has a tendency to douse

school spirit.

But, in 1973, things started to change.

Enter Costa Mesa Principal Bob Packer, whose unparalleled leadership

created a positive dominoes affect as Costa Mesa climbed to not only

respectability, but arguably the No. 1 high school in the Newport-Mesa

School District.

Packer, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, is

humble about his term at Costa Mesa from 1973 through ’81 and quick to

give credit to assistant principals Tom Jacobson and Terry Cole.

While Packer’s administrative staff at Mesa was seemingly among the

best anywhere in Orange County (Jacobson, for example, soon became

principal at Newport Harbor and later Corona del Mar), there’s no denying

that good companies and institutions are headed by top-notch leaders.

Through time, Packer would prove to be one of the most significant and

influential administrators in district history, and later was elected

president of both the CIF Southern Section (1985) and CIF State executive

committees.

“Those were great times,” Packer said. “Of all the things going on in

CIF, good and bad ... (and) because of my love for sports all my life and

love for athletes and kids, it was a wonderful time.”

Following a memorable eight-year stint as principal at Costa Mesa,

Packer became deputy superintendent at Tustin Unified School District,

then returned to his old stomping grounds and became superintendent of

the Duarte School District.

A member of the Monrovia High Wildcats’ Sports Hall of Fame, Packer

was an outstanding football center who went on to play at Occidental

College. As a senior at Oxy, Packer was selected to the All-Southern

California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference squad and voted team

co-captain by his peers, perhaps a sign of things to come in a successful

career.

“To be elected by my fellow teammates to a position of leadership,

well, I suppose that’s my highlight as an athlete,” Packer said. “You

know, as an old lineman, you don’t really have any highlights.”

After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Packer accepted his first

coaching position at Puente High in 1958 as the B football coach.

To this day, Packer’s coaching highlight will always be winning the B

championship that first season, because it was Puente’s first football

title at any level in the 43-year history of the school at that time. It

became La Puente High in the early ‘60s.

After four years at Puente, Packer helped open Nogales High (Puente)

in 1962, serving as athletic director and head football coach.

Four years later, Packer was promoted to assistant principal at

Nogales, then principal four years later in 1970. After three years as

the Nogales principal, Packer arrived at Costa Mesa, where he helped turn

school spirit around, including the hiring of football coach Tom French

in 1974. French led the Mustangs to two South Coast League titles.

“We had a great run at Costa Mesa High,” Packer said. “People have

asked me a number of times, in a career as varied as mine, what I would

say I’m most proud of. And what I’m most proud of is my time at Costa

Mesa High. When I came to Costa Mesa in 1973, those were some very

troubled times for the school. It had four principals in five years. It

was not a happy place.

“But I can honestly say eight years later when I left, and it wasn’t

me but everyone else around me, that it was the best high school in the

district and the kids were proud of that school ... There have been a lot

of highlights, but without any equivocation, those years at Costa Mesa

were the most satisfying, most gratifying in almost 40 years in public

education. And I’ve told that to a lot of folks.”

Packer, who earned his masters degree at Cal State Los Angeles and PhD

at USIU in La Jolla, retired as a school district superintendent in

January 1993. At the same time, Packer concluded a six-year term with the

CIF State, serving two years each as president-elect, president and

senior citizen president (to assist the current one).

The roles as president of the CIF Southern Section and CIF State

executive committees are voluntary.

Packer, who still plays golf with some of his former CIF State

officers, lives in Palm Springs in the winter and enjoys a summer home on

Whidbey Island, Wash., the largest island in the continental U.S., with

his wife of 47 years, Dorothy. They have three grown sons and six

grandchildren (two from each son).