Former Santa Ana Coach Dotterer Dies at 68

Henry “Dutch” Dotterer, a major league catcher for five seasons and teacher at Santa Ana High for nearly two decades, died Saturday in Syracuse, N.Y. of complications from diabetes. He was 68.

Dotterer taught bilingual education at Santa Ana until his retirement in 1993, when he returned to Syracuse and opened a book store. He also was a lower-level baseball coach and chess club advisor at Santa Ana.

“Dutch was the kind of guy you could talk baseball with or the origins of the universe,” Santa Ana Athletic Director Frank Alvarado said. “He was that kind of guy. He was a renaissance man.”

Dotterer is survived by his wife Mary, daughter Margo of Sacramento and son Mike of San Francisco. Mike was a baseball and football standout at Edison High.

Primarily a backup catcher with the Cincinnati Reds (1957-60) and Washington Senators (1961), Dotterer batted .247 with five home runs and 33 runs batted in in 107 games.

In a 1954 stunt, Dotterer earned $500 when he caught a baseball dropped 575 feet from a hovering helicopter.

COLLEGES

Conference USA officials agreed to add Texas Christian and East Carolina as full members starting in the fall of 2001, the conference said Monday. East Carolina is now a football-only member of C-USA.

The loss of TCU will probably lead Western Athletic Conference officials to pick up at least one more school, with Boise State and Louisiana Tech at the top of their list. WAC presidents are expected to meet Sunday to plot their future, which could lead to radical changes in the Big West should Boise State change conferences.

Officials from the Big West’s California schools are seeking to form a California conference. The conference’s other schools--Boise State, Utah State, North Texas, New Mexico State and Idaho--have lobbied the WAC for admission. Nevada, another Big West school, will begin competing in the WAC next fall.

WHEELCHAIR TENNIS

The U.S. Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships are being held this week at the George E. Barnes Family Junior Tennis Center in San Diego. The finals are Sunday.

The U.S. Open had previously been held at the Racquet Club of Irvine.

Draws and results are available at https://www.tennisinformation.com.