Bishop Diego Coaches Enjoy a Good Old Time

The season ended a couple weeks earlier than hoped for the Sunshine Boys of high school football, but what the heck. It wasn’t such a bad start, especially because they plan to come back for more in 1987. Better than sitting around, anyway.

“Retirement is for the birds,” said Sam Cathcart, a rookie coach again. “You can mow the lawn, clean the garage and travel, but after a while it gets old.”

But will Cathcart and Paul Huebner ever?

Thirty-three years after leaving the San Francisco 49ers, 32 years after becoming a head coach at Santa Barbara High, 26 years after winning the Southern Section 4-A title, 16 years after coaching his last game and 2 years since retiring from teaching altogether, Cathcart, 62, got back into the game. He didn’t need it, but he figured the kids and the program at Bishop Diego of Santa Barbara needed him.

Cathcart, a few months into his new job as athletic director at Bishop Diego, saw Huebner at a social gathering of former Shrine all-star coaches during the summer and asked him to take over the program. Huebner, himself 62 and with City championships in 1958 and ’60 to his credit as co-coach with Gene Vollnogle at Banning, agreed. But only if the two could split the duties.

So off they went, 124 years’ worth of knowledge of playing and coaching in high school, college and pro to teach a new generation. They had played against one another in high school in 1941--Cathcart at Long Beach Poly and Huebner at Phoenix Union of Arizona--and in college--UC Santa Barbara and Occidental--but now would be on the same sideline.

Bishop Diego, a four-year school with an enrollment of 350, was 4-6 on the field, got two forfeits to make the official record 6-4.

Cathcart even got the chance to face Santa Paula, whose head coach, Mike Tsoutsouvas, played for him in the late ‘60s and whose defensive coordinator, Sam Cathcart, is his son. Two others are also involved in area high school sports. Steve is the offensive coordinator at Santa Barbara and Scott is media and public relations director for the Southern Section.