Carnett: Dick Tucker Field a fitting tribute

He’s most deserving!

Orange Coast College announced last week that it’s naming its football field after Dick Tucker, former Pirate head football coach.

The Coast Community College District Board of Trustees approved the naming of Dick Tucker Field. The facility itself, which opened in 1955, will remain LeBard Stadium.

As I’ve stated numerous times over the years, the newly labeled Dick Tucker Field is the most intimate and comfortable place in Orange County to watch a football game. It’s a jewel.

Tucker, 90, a Corona del Mar resident, was OCC’s highly successful grid coach for 24 seasons, from 1962 through 1985.

Dick has been a personal friend and hero of mine for 45 years. In addition to being a great motivator and coach, he’s conducted his life with humility and grace. He was my role model during my 37-year career as an OCC administrator.

I saw how colleagues around the nation respected Dick. Committed to academic excellence, he was, and is, pure class.

I actually first became aware of Tucker in 1962 when he was hired as OCC’s football coach and I was a freshman. I enrolled in one of his classes. His team went 9-1 that year and I became a big fan. The next year the Pirates were 10-0 and national champions.

“Dick has to rank as one of the top football coaches in the nation at any level,” says Leon Skeie, OCC’s athletic trainer and professor of physical education for more than 40 years. “He was the best I ever saw.”

After his first few seasons it was anticipated by many that Tucker would move on to the four-year level. He wasn’t yet 40. USC head coach John McKay thought highly of him.

But Tucker had found his niche. He loved Orange Coast College and he loved JC football.

Tucker set down his marker in ’62. The following year he led the Pirates to the Junior Rose Bowl championship and national title. In his first three seasons the Bucs went 25-5 and played in three bowl games. Tucker’s Pirates captured a second national crown in 1975.

Dick served as athletic director for a decade, from 1979-89. He retired in 1995 after 33 years at the college.

A Long Beach native, Tucker was hired as head football coach at Brea Olinda High School in 1951. In 11 seasons, his Brea teams captured eight league championships and two CIF titles. They were Orange League champs seven years running.

Orange Coast College’s football fortunes during that same era were less than scintillating. During the 1959, ’60 and ’61 campaigns the Pirates were a combined 7-19-1. By the spring of ‘62, founding OCC President Basil H. Peterson had had enough. He hired Tucker.

“Though I loved Brea, I told Dr. Peterson I was ready to make the move,” Tucker told me in an interview several years ago.

That first season, Tucker and his assistants, Dale Wonacott and Fred Owens, turned OCC’s program around. The Pirates beat Glendale College in the Orange Show Bowl in San Bernardino, 23-16. George Mattias joined the staff the next year.

In ‘63, LeBard Stadium was packed for every game. I would know.

I was there.

For the final game of the regular season the Pirates hosted Chaffey College. A victory would insure the Bucs of a Junior Rose Bowl bid. Northeastern Oklahoma A&M had secured the other bid the previous week.

Northeastern head coach Red Robertson was in the press box that night to scout the Pirates. OCC won, 48-0.

Robertson was asked after the game what he thought of OCC.

“I think I’d rather play Chaffey,” he deadpanned.

That December, Orange Coast beat NEO, 21-0, to win the Junior Rose Bowl. More than 44,000 fans, including myself, were on hand in Pasadena. The game was telecast nationally.

Northeastern’s Robertson, who died in 1987 at 76, has a football facility named after him on the A&M campus:. It’s only fitting that Tucker have one at OCC.

Tucker produced his second national championship in 1975. OCC’s Pirates went 11-0 and defeated Rio Hondo College in the Avocado Bowl.

In 24 seasons, Dick logged 129 victories. Six of his squads won conference championships, and he was voted Conference Coach of the Year six times. Twice he was California’s JC Coach of the Year. His combined 35-year OCC and high school record was 231-115-5.

In March 2004, Tucker was inducted into the California Community College Football Coaches Assn. Hall of Fame. Three years later he became a member of the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame.

He’ll be honored before OCC’s 2016 season opener at 6 p.m. Sept. 3 at Dick Tucker Field.

We Tucker fans will be there.

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JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.