OBITUARY : John Patrick, 77; Former Coach at Alhambra High

John Patrick, the big-hearted Alhambra High School athletic coach who guided two generations of students to victory on the playing fields of the San Gabriel Valley, died June 5 of leukemia. He was 77.

For 42 years, Patrick coached basketball, football and baseball, with his biggest success coming in 1964, when Alhambra High’s football team went to the California Interscholastic Finals for the Southern California region.

But Patrick is equally remembered for his inspiration off the playing field. Friends and former students said he often reached into his own pockets to help youths who lacked money to buy gym shoes.

And despite his fiercely competitive spirit, Patrick also stressed to his players the importance of doing well in high school.

“He was really a pioneer in that field, in that he continually focused on getting your education, that was more important that success in athletics,” said Dick Wallen, a San Marino attorney who played football for Patrick in the 1950s and went to UCLA on a football scholarship.

“He was always there if you had a problem in school or in life, he was always ready to sit and talk,” said Bob Korpal, who played for Patrick in the 1960s and kept in touch through his job in the industrial technology department at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra.

Patrick also embraced the youths he taught who would never score touchdowns or hit home runs: the disabled teen-agers who signed up for his remedial physical education class at Alhambra High.

The longtime coach attended Penn State University from 1935 to 1939 and is remembered there for the first varsity football game he ever played, in which he took the opening kickoff and ran it back for a 96-yard touchdown.

After graduation, Patrick became the university’s assistant football coach and varsity boxing coach. He joined the Navy in 1941 as a physical fitness trainer for fighter pilots, earning the rank of lieutenant commander by 1945, when he was discharged.

From 1946 to 1948 Patrick worked as a counselor at USC. That year, he became assistant varsity football coach at Alhambra High. Eleven years later, he was promoted to varsity football coach.

Patrick retired in 1990. The following year, he received the Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame. Last year he was named to the CIF Hall of Fame, one of only 12 coaches to be so honored.

Patrick’s wife of 36 years, Jean Marie, died in 1977.

He is survived by a brother, Bob Patrick of Volant, Pa.; three children, Bill Patrick of Alhambra, Doug Patrick of Big Bear City and Diana Fry of Florida; and five grandchildren.

Memorial services were Friday at Church of Our Savior in San Gabriel.