JANE HILGENDORF

Richard Dunn

These days, Jane Hilgendorf only clocks in at the golf course,

while playing greenskeeper at her home garden in Corona del Mar.

Ah, yes. Retired. The good life. The stage many hope one day to

embrace. It officially began for Hilgendorf on Jan. 5, 2001, when she

waved goodbye as Orange Coast College’s Athletic Director, ending

almost 31 years of service to the Costa Mesa community college.

“I loved every single moment at that job at that college,” said

Hilgendorf, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of

Fame.

Hilgendorf, a former high school drill team instructor whose first

job was cleaning test tubes in a laboratory for her father as a

child, arrived at OCC in the fall of 1970 as a physical education

teacher, not as a coach. But soon, Hilgendorf was in charge of the

school’s coed volleyball team, which traveled the Southland in a

rickety station wagon and played under, well, a different set of

rules. Among other things, only men were allowed to spike balls over

the net.

From 1971 to ‘73, Hilgendorf coached the Pirates’ coed team, then

took over the women’s program in ’73 and lasted through 1991, when

she stepped down as coach with a 233-100 career record and three

state championships (1978, ’80 and ‘82).

“I still get e-mails and notes from players through the years who

have been real close,” Hilgendorf said. “We had so much fun on those

teams, especially the teams from the 1970s and the first half of the

‘80s. It was fun and team-oriented. If you didn’t have fun, it was

your own fault. In those days, we had no tall players -- only short,

quick ones who really liked playing with each other. That was the

type of player we had. No one felt they were the star, because it was

always so team-oriented and everyone was always so supportive of each

other.”

Hilgendorf remembers once when former OCC standout Lori Adams, one

of those quick, 5-foot-6 players she had in abundance, took a rocket

off her face, then simply turned around and smiled.

“That was the kind of attitude those kids had,” Hilgendorf said of

the golden era of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when OCC won three

state titles in five years.

Hilgendorf, who entered OCC’s athletic administration after the

‘91 volleyball season, served as athletic director for three years,

before retiring to the fairways. The rules chairperson for the ladies

club at Newport Beach Country Club, Hilgendorf tees it up three or

four times a week with various groups of regular partners, including

the Friday morning Dawn Patrol, when players arrive at 6:30 a.m.

Having recently taken up water color painting, Hilgendorf said she

had “never done anything in the art world” and was actually following

her mother’s footsteps. “My mom had taken up oil painting when she

turned 70,” said Hilgendorf, who signed up for a water color class at

Saddleback College, where no one would know her and, perhaps, a

teacher would be more objective.

Hilgendorf, who made her own Christmas cards last year, has also

enjoyed photography, writing and gardening, as well as golf.

“She is by far the most positive person I know,” said OCC women’s

volleyball coach Chuck Cutenese, who replaced Hilgendorf as coach.

Born in Milwaukee, Wis., and raised in nearby Wauwautosa,

Hilgendorf moved with her family to Pasadena when she was 7. A

graduate of Pasadena High, Pasadena City College and UC Santa Barbara

with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, Hilgendorf earned her

master’s degree in P.E. at UCLA. She spent seven years at Arcadia

High, where her main focus was head drill team instructor, before

landing at OCC.

A former longtime health education teacher, Hilgendorf still

writes a weekly health column for the OCC newsletter under the

heading: “Hilgendorf’s Healthful Hints.”

She’s also the executive director of the Lutheran Good Samaritan

Society, a nonprofit organization.