Obituary: Bucko Shaw dies of liver cancer

Richard Dunn

NEWPORT BEACH - David “Bucko” Shaw, honored in the inaugural year

of the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 to celebrate the

millennium, died of liver cancer Sunday.

According to his brother, Bob, he passed away quietly at the home of

his friends, Mark and Laurie Keyes.

Shaw was a star on the 1974 Newport Harbor High Sunset League

championship football team, which set a school record for victories in a

season as Coach Bill Pizzica’s Sailors finished 10-2.

That season, Shaw, a first-team all-league strong safety, returned an

interception 100 yards for a touchdown against Loara.

Shaw, at 5-foot-8, 170 pounds, was a pass-protecting left tackle his

junior year for quarterback Steve Bukich, who later played at UCLA, in

1973 as the Tars shared the Sunset title. He switched to safety his

senior year and earned All-Orange Coast area and All-Orange County

honors.

“Back then, every team in the Sunset League was just a battle and

almost every game was a nail-biter,” Shaw once said.

Shaw later coached at Newport Harbor as a defensive coordinator under

Mike Giddings, helping the Tars win three consecutive Sea View League

championships from 1983 through ’85.

Along with an unforgettable nickname -- given to him by his brother,

Bob -- Shaw was always the “undisputed life of any party,” his brother

said. “Someone casually asked him what he did (for a living). He

scratched his chin, thought a minute, then said, ‘You know how a golf pro

shows people how to play golf? Well, I show them how to have a good

time.”’

Any night in Newport Beach were live music was playing, locals would

spot him suddenly appearing on stage for his unique rendition of “Surfin’

USA.”

When interviewed for the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, Shaw said he

would often sing the Beach Boys tune for last call at the Cannery

restaurant.

“In the last years of his life, he turned a lot of his

over-indulgences around, largely thanks to his friends,” Bob Shaw said.

“His former teammate and lifelong friend, Tommy Bozacas, got him into his

church and Tommy’s father, John, got him into his Newport Athletic Club,

where he was a daily feature.”

His brother added: “He had an enormous appetite for life and fun and

wanted everyone else to join in. He loved loud bars, race tracks,

surfing, the Three Stooges and being with his hordes of friends.

“The hundreds of people who will gather on a peninsula beach this

weekend for his memorial services will not just be thinking about

football, (but) they will be remembering a great guy, a great friend ...”

When Shaw’s sister, Sandy, was a Harbor cheerleader, he once said his

“first idols were Newport Harbor football players” in the early 1960s,

when he could look out his bedroom window and see Davidson Field.

Shaw was single and 44.