In Memoriam
Mike Moropoulos 1930-2020
truly a man for all seasons. He coached football, swimming, baseball, and golf. He fished for calico bass and trout. He dived for lobster and abalone. He hunted pheasants and ducks. In all those pursuits, Mike preached and practiced good sportsmanship. You must observe the rules and regulations. You do not demean your competitors. You do not catch more than you can eat (or give to friends for their meals). You take both victory and defeat — whether it’s winning a big game or getting skunked on a long day’s fishing trip — with gratitude and humility. Moropoulos instilled those values during a 35-year career as a coach, teacher, and administrator at Santa BarFAIR PLAY: Mike Moropoulos coached high school players in life lessons of bara High. There was no other school gratitude and respect. that mattered to the Los Angeles native after he graduated with a teaching credential from weeks short of his 90th birthday, it seemed fitting for UCSB, where he was captain and MVP of the Gaucho a memorial celebration of his life to be held at Peabody football team in 1954. He proclaimed his devotion Stadium, the shrine of SBHS football. But the reconwith a vehicular tattoo, a personalized license plate struction of the stadium was still incomplete, and the that read: SB DONS. His wardrobe consisted of vari- COVID pandemic has since put off indefinitely any ous combinations of the school’s colors, olive green large public gatherings. and gold. Moropoulos cared about all Santa Barbara Dons, He was in the middle of some of the most cherished not just budding football stars. He became the school’s memories of Dons’ football fans. He was line coach in second athletic director in 1965 and served until his 1960 when Santa Barbara won the CIF large-school retirement in 1989. Soccer and volleyball teams were championship, defeating Centennial in the L.A. Coli- established on his watch, as well as the entire girls’ seum. Later in the decade, the Dons’ defensive front sports program. Moropoulos had a strong friendship with Sut included Bob “Big Man” Pointer, at 447 pounds the largest player in the land. One night he intercepted Puailoa, a former UCSB teammate and coach at crossa pass and chugged almost 10 yards before several town rival San Marcos High, known as the “Smilin’ Camarillo players tackled him. Years later, Moropou- Samoan.” Mike could have been called the “Gregarilos said he could still hear the wildly roaring crowd ous Greek.” When both were done with prep football, at Peabody Stadium. The best player he remembered they teamed up again to coach a club team at UCSB from that era, in both character and physical tal- in the mid-’80s. ent, was fullback and linebacker Sam Cunningham. Between scholastic seasons, Moropoulos enjoyed Mike was head football coach in 1977 when his son, the great outdoors. He and soul brother Bud BotCraig Moropoulos, quarterbacked SBHS to a league toms would go trout fishing in the Eastern Sierra. He title; and in 1980, when Randall Cunningham, Sam’s had a love of the ocean that was spawned when, as a younger brother, led the Dons to a record 13 consecu- hungry college student, he would dive for abalone in tive victories before losing to Long Beach Poly in the the Carpinteria Reef, once plucking a limit of five in a single dive. CIF final. Nothing made him happier in his retirement years “I am grateful for my experience in high school,” said Randall Cunningham, a four-time All-Pro quar- than seeing a youngster catch his first fish at Cachuma terback in the NFL. He was the all-time leading rusher Lake. He hung out at the lake with Neal Taylor, an at the position when he retired, but he never would expert fly fisherman and nature guide. One of the best have made it, he said, if Moropoulos had not tempered things I did as sports editor of the News-Press was to his instincts when he was young and raw. “From the talk Mike into writing a weekly outdoor column for first day, he told me: ‘If you run, you will not play the paper. He diligently put his knowledge into words quarterback for me,’ ” Cunningham said. “He didn’t and presented solid scientific information about fish want me to be injured. That is the best thing that could and game. The depletion of abalone that he once harhave happened. I worked on my passing and became vested raised his awareness of resource management. “My excuse, a lame one at that, was that I was uneda complete quarterback.” Booker Brown said Moropoulos was a no-nonsense ucated about the issue of conservation,” he confessed. coach who laid the groundwork for him to become a “Your kids and mine will not have, and should not rising star as an offensive lineman at SBCC, USC, and, need, that weak rationale. Education is the answer.” ultimately, with the San Diego Chargers. “You weren’t My favorite column of his pulled at the heartgoing to talk back to him,” Brown said. “He taught me strings. It was about his last hunt with Kota, a beloved the fundamentals: footwork, keep your head up and black Labrador, before he had to put the dog down. It butt down, how to pull, how to trap block. He taught was a wonderful revelation of Mike’s humanity. He is survived by his wife, Pat, a teacher herself, and me to keep my composure. I came out of high school sons Chris and Craig, SBCC’s head football coach for knowing how to play football.” After Moropoulos died last February 16, three the past 13 seasons. n
DICK MARTIN
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BY J O H N Z A N T ike Moropoulos was
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SEPTEMBER 17, 2020
THE INDEPENDENT
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