Hall of Fame: Jules Gage (Newport Harbor)
Richard Dunn
Jules Gage just turned 80 years old and is “still living a good
life.”
In fact, Gage, the former Newport Harbor High athletic director and
basketball coach at Newport Harbor and Costa Mesa in the 1950s and ‘60s,
couldn’t ask for anything more in his golden years.
With four children, nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren
all living in California, Gage said there are “a lot of reunions, a lot
of get-togethers, a lot of parties, and they’re all just great kids ...
there are no divorces in the family and no drugs. We’ve been very
fortunate.”
Gage, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, lives
in Carlsbad with his wife of 59 years, Helen, and enjoys retirement to
the hilt.
Jules and Helen both graduated from Hollywood High in 1940, then
attended Santa Barbara State Teachers College (later to become UC Santa
Barbara).
Gage transferred to BYU, then World War II broke out and he spent the
next 4 1/2 years in the U.S. Navy, mostly as a chief pharmacist. For 2
1/2 years, Gage was stationed in Brisbane, Australia, where he helped
build a mobile hospital.
After WWII, Gage returned to school and earned his teaching credential
at UCSB, received his master’s degree at Claremont Graduate School, then
landed his first teaching and coaching job in 1949 at Newport Harbor.
For the next three decades, the athletic landscape in the Newport-Mesa
School District would not be the same.
Gage started as an assistant football coach under Al Irwin, then
replaced legendary former Harbor basketball coach Ralph Reed in 1952.
Gage guided the Sailors to five straight winning seasons and Sunset
League championships in 1954, ’56 and ’57. The ’57 squad set a school
record for victories in season (19).
When Costa Mesa opened for business in the late 1950s, Gage moved over
from Newport Harbor to become the Mustangs’ first basketball coach and
athletic director.
In Mesa’s second year of varsity basketball, Gage coached the 1962
Mustangs to the CIF Southern Section 2-A semifinals, in which they won
their last four Freeway League games to earn a playoff berth, then began
a Cinderella run through the playoffs with three more victories, before
losing to eventual 2-A champion Bell Gardens.
Gage, who eventually launched an innovative physical education program
at Costa Mesa with the late Don Burns, enjoyed his finest season at Mesa
in 1966, when a team led by Bruce Chapman, Craig Falconer, Bart Carrido
and the Mancebo brothers, Rick and Larry.
Those Mustangs finished 18-8 and faced top-seeded Long Beach Poly in
the opening round of the playoffs, losing 109-81 before a packed house at
Orange Coast College. Poly, the two-time defending CIF champion, was so
good in ‘66, the Jackrabbits “could have beat the Lakers that year,”
Chapman said.
But Gage suffered a heart attack after that season and never returned
to the bench.
Gage went back to Newport Harbor and served as athletic director until
1980, when he retired from the district.
Gage’s popular P.E. program, which included rope climbing and various
military-type obstacle courses, ranks at the top of his proudest
achievements in his career.
(The Costa Mesa High Class of 1962 has invited Gage to its 40-year
reunion later this year.)
“(The P.E. program) wasn’t our idea. We stole it from somebody else.
But it was great,” Gage said, referring to a three-day trip with Burns to
Redwood City, where the two Mesa coaches jotted down as many notes as
possible to share with their colleagues and students.
“I played for 30 years. That’s all it was. Just playtime,” Gage said
of his Newport-Mesa career.
In one final career stop, Gage served for 16 years as a branch manager
of the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society in Camp Pendleton, a Washington,
D.C.-based organization that helps military personnel with myriad
problems, including financial consulting and marriage counseling.
“For young Marines right out of high school and living in an expensive
area with the military pay not the greatest, you could have some hard
times,” Gage said. “I’m a flag twirler. I’m very pro-American. I just
fell right into (the job). I’m the kind of guy who gets goose pimples
every time you play the Star-Spangled Banner ... with my background, it
was easy for me. I talk to people easily. It doesn’t bother me.”
These days, Gage and his wife enjoy dancing, golf and tennis.
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