A Dream Fulfilled : The Seeds of Dick Tucker’s Long, Distinguished Coaching Career Took Root as a Youngster in Long Beach

Dick Tucker never doubted that he wanted to be a coach.

From the time he started playing sports as a youngster in Long Beach, Tucker said he paid close attention to how much fun the coaches were having.

What he didn’t plan on was the great success he would have during his distinguished career.

Tucker, 69, came to Orange County in 1951 as the football and basketball coach at Brea Olinda High. He had a 97-18-1 record in 11 seasons of football with the Wildcats. He moved on to Orange Coast College in 1962, and in 24 seasons was 129-105-5 and won two national championships.

Tucker will be inducted into the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday.

“I knew from Day 1 I wanted to be a coach,” Tucker said. “I even knew in high school. I really enjoyed playing, and coaching seemed to be the closest thing to playing.”

Tucker said he has been fortunate to coach some of the greatest teams in Orange County history.

His 1963 Orange Coast team powered its way to a national championship. The Pirates were 9-0 in the regular season, then beat Northeastern Oklahoma A & M, 21-0, before an estimated 44,000 in the Junior Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Tucker always said defense was the key and that season the Pirates outscored opponents, 330-43.

His 1975 OCC team also was a dominating one. The Pirates finished 11-0, outscoring opponents by 27 points a game and beat Rio Hondo, 38-14, in the Avocado Bowl to clinch the national championship.

Tucker points to his 1962 team, his first at Orange Coast, as an often overlooked group. He said the team was almost as talented as both his national championship squads. The 1962 Pirates went 9-1, losing only to Santa Ana College, which won the national championship that season.

Barry Wallace, Orange Coast’s dean of the physical education division and athletic director, was a member of the 1962 team.

“He was like one of the guys,” Wallace said of Tucker. “He understood what we were going through and he made us want to play hard for him. He understood the game well and got a lot out of us.”

Tucker’s athletic career started at Long Beach Jordan High, where he was a football and basketball standout.

He graduated from high school in 1944 and joined the Navy. He was an air crewman on a patrol flying boat and was training for the invasion of Japan when the war ended.

After World War II, Tucker enrolled at Whittier College and was one of 130 going out for the football team in 1946.

He started as a center and linebacker but because of injuries to teammates, was switched to running back and later quarterback in a single-wing offense. He was the team’s most valuable player as a junior and its player of the year as a senior.

Tucker also played basketball at Whittier despite a knee injury suffered in football. After graduating in 1950, he remained at Whittier to work on his master’s degree.

Tucker was married that year; he and his wife Phillippa have three sons. Travis was a standout basketball player at OCC and Rhett and Clay both played football for the Pirates. Rhett, a linebacker, still holds the school’s single-season record for tackles with 179 in 1976.

In the summer of 1951, Tucker was offered head coaching jobs at Bellflower and Brea Olinda highs. He took the job at Brea Olinda because the school had a gym.

“Being from Long Beach,” Tucker said, “after the [1933] earthquake, nobody had a gym. We played all our games outside. I thought that was the greatest gym [at Brea] I’d ever seen.”

Tucker made it known right away that anyone who wanted to play basketball would also have to play football, and said it helped keep the number of athletes on the team up.

Tucker’s football team was 4-4 in his first season, and that was by far his worst record. His Brea Olinda teams won eight league titles and two Southern Section championships (1959 and 1962). His basketball teams also won four league titles.

Three times, Tucker had section players of the year. Adrian Ledbetter won it in 1956, Gary Holman shared the award with John Huarte of Mater Dei in 1960 and Steve Ledbetter won in 1961.

“We had a good caliber of kid,” Tucker said. “Every kid that came in wanted to play. I was very fortunate to have such gifted athletes.”

In his last few years at Brea Olinda, Tucker began to work as a football official and worked games at OCC several times.

In 1961, Tucker’s last year at Brea Olinda, he was the logical choice for the Fullerton College job but decided to stay for one more year, then went after the OCC job.

“I always liked the atmosphere at Orange Coast,” he said. “When I walked on the campus, I thought, ‘This would be great.’ ”

Tucker retired as OCC football coach after the 1985 season but has continued to work at the college. He was athletic director from 1976 to 1987.

He became the golf coach in 1976 and still maintains that role on a part-time basis. His teams have won three conference titles.

“You know how people say ‘If I had it to do over again,’ ” Tucker said. “Well, I wouldn’t change a thing. I met a lot of neat people and coached against a lot of great people.”

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Orange County Hall of Fame

* What: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies and dinner.

* Date: Thursday

* Time: Ceremonies at 6 p.m., dinner at 7:30

* Location: Near Gate 6, Anaheim Stadium

* Honorees: Don Johnson, former Cypress College men’s basketball coach; Mike Lansford, former Ram kicker; Dick Tucker, former Orange Coast College and Brea Olinda High football coach; Clyde Wright, former Angel pitcher; Mark Wulfmeyer, former Troy High basketball and baseball standout.

* Background: The Hall of Fame opened in December 1993. This year’s additions brings the total of inducted members to 78.

* Tickets: $100 per person or $1,000 for a table of 10.

* Reservations: (714) 758-9882.