Mitch Stephens: Remembering Fred Warrecker, honoring all high school coaches
I dove into three crates of my 63-year-old life this week, searching for a single sheet of paper. Crates filled with school papers, love letters and endless newspaper clippings, ones that revealed the rich, accomplished and sometimes even tragic lives of others.
I told myself not to give into the memories, the emotion, the nostalgia, but three hours later, I finally found what I was looking for — a paper-clipped stack of letters of recommendations for the first post college graduation job I ever applied for, an assistant sports information director position at UC Santa Barbara.
At the top of the stack was the one I had searched, a cursive hand-written note from my Santa Barbara High School baseball coach Fred Warrecker, dated July 22, 1984.
Thirty-nine years later to the day, Coach Warrecker, who died on June 26 at the age of 84, will be honored in a private celebration in downtown Santa Barbara.
They could throw him a parade.
Fred Warrecker in front of a statue of one of his idols Jackie Robinson at Dodger Stadium in 2017. Photo: Laird McLain
The number of lives Mr. Warrecker influenced and inspired over 43 years coaching baseball and football and teaching english and literature at Santa Barbara High School could fill a stadium. Any stadium.
He won 615 baseball games — the seventh most at one school in Southern Section history — during his career that finished up in 2015 at age 76. He coached five future major leaguers — Jesse Orozco, Ryan Spilborghs, Matt Vasquez, Dylan Axelrod and Cord Phelps — but more significant his six sons, Wes, Willy, Jonathan, Tony, Teddy and Donny, almost all who made baseball, coaching or athletics a focal point.
His grandson Bryce — another former Don — was drafted earlier this month in the 20th round by the New York Yankees. Baseball and family were as one to coach Warrecker.
He was a baseball savant for sure, who fell in love with the game growing up in Santa Maria, a star left-handed pitcher who went on to earn MVP honors at UC Santa Barbara in the 1960s and a Hall of Fame three-year career as an original member of the Santa Barbara Foresters semi-pro Baseball Club.
He earned Hall of Fame honors with other organizations — the California Baseball Coaches Association and the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table — but for me personally, he always owned a piece of my soul.
Like countless others, he was a second father to me, the most dynamic and charismatic personality I’ve ever known.
READ MARK PATTON TRIBUTE TO FRED WARRECKER ON NOOZHAWK
BIG PICTURE
Coach Warrecker was a direct part of my life for only a short chunk, but then again, ages 14 to 18, are critical years for sure. Especially for those of us raised by single parents, single moms. We are especially drawn to strong forces, original thinkers, powerful, convicted voices.
Coach Warrecker was a human specie magnet.
He was whip smart — “the smartest man I ever knew,” said his longtime friend and co-coach Bill Oliphant — utilizing a sharp, critical tongue, and a kind, compassionate heart. He pulled and prodded, berated and bullied, pushed and praised to bring out your best.
It was obvious — at least to me — he always had the big picture in mind. He taught literature for Hemingway’s sake, quoted passages from Hans Christian Andersen, Henry David Thoreau and Jim Murray.
Yes, he started a sports literature class at SBHS, one of the most popular curriculums in school, and he would unleash sports pages every day, something that particularly caught my interest.
He applied and poured all his worldly knowledge, all his life lessons, triumphs and hardships, onto the baseball field and it all translated into love for me. I didn’t necessarily share the love of the game like he — I was more of a basketball fan — but the feeling I felt from the man was like no other. I felt alert, alive and excited to seize the day.
In a game of failure, however, I wasn’t very good. I didn’t take rejection very well, and was extremely hard on myself, and coach Warrecker recognized that. He rarely barked at me and even as an all-field, no-hit outfielder, he often started me. I think he did to set an example because I was a hard worker, a good teammate and I cared.
Even though I was about 1-for-season at the plate, those intangible traits meant something to him. He rewarded it and it gave me a great sense of worth, something I’m forever grateful for and try to pass on to all others with a similar makeup.
Fred Warrecker watching down at a SBHS Dons game in 2019. Photo: Paul Wellman/SB Independent
NEXT BEST THING
I struck out on my initial job search as well. Didn’t get that SID job at UCSB I so wanted.
But I remembered one of the countless lessons coach Warrecker taught on the ball field: “do the next best thing.”
If you kick a grounder — I did many in my early years as a shortstop — then fake a throw to first and try to pick off someone else on base. Don’t pick up the ball and do nothing. Find a solution. Find an out. A better path. Encourage a teammate. Don’t sulk. Never wallow.
Such as life.
So instead of the SID business, I went the journalism route. I’ve been a high school sports writer and reporter for nearly 40 years.
Coach Warrecker always encouraged us to give back to the game, come back to coach or mentor others. And though I never did, I’d like to think I did the next best thing.
Through writing and reporting, I hope I’ve helped to raise the awareness of the young, aspiring talents, and even more so, share the life lessons of the influential high school coaches.
I’ve lived long enough now, where I feel I can honestly thank every one of these men and women who more than coach a sport, but impact lives. For the last decade, I have done so every time I interview a coach.
In my view — ones shared by my many former and current bosses and colleagues — the high school coach is a major backbone of this land.
Mostly seen as an unglamorous position, poorly compensated monetarily with crummy hours, I find prep coaches to be among the richest, blessed with growing second sons and daughters every year, by the dozens, their Holiday cards overflowed with past pupils and lifelong friends.
For me, it started, but did not end with Mr. Warrecker.
I cherish the man for his coaching, his care, his mentoring and the words he wrote 39 years ago today: “I can say that in 12 years at Santa Barbara High School he stands out as one of the most honest, warm, people persons I have known. I recommend him without reservation.”
