INSTANT REPLAY: They called him ‘Coach’
The resumé of longtime West Van Highlanders football coach Gary Schwertfeger contains one nugget that no past or present B.C. high school head coach has duplicated. At least I’m pretty sure there’s no one else.
Here’s the nugget: Schwertfeger played in two Grey Cup games with the B.C. Lions (1963 and 1964, winning in ’64) and also played for Oakland Raiders the season they went to the 1968 Super Bowl (at the end of the 1967 season).
Now that last paragraph had to be worded carefully. That’s because, while Gary was an important cog in the Lions’ lineup – at times playing centre, linebacker and tackle – during B.C.’s most successful four-year stretch (1962-65) through the team’s first three decades, he did not play in the Super Bowl game which Oakland lost to Green Bay 33-14.
He played in the Raiders’ four pre-season games and then with the Continental League’s Sacramento Buccaneers, a kind of taxi squad for Oakland’s American Football League team. But he did play those four exhibitions with the Raiders who went 13-1 in AFL play and made it to Super Bowl II at a time when the AFL and National Football League were separate entities until merging in 1970.
Schwertfeger is a legend at West Van High where he was a P.E. teacher and head senior football coach for 28 years beginning in 1975. But I doubt if he hardly ever mentioned his resumé nugget. His focus was always on what to do to improve the WV gridiron program.
Gary grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He took a scholarship to Montana State University – Lions’ quarterback Travis Lulay also went there – and played when the Bobcats recorded the best four-year winning percentage in the school’s football history which goes back to 1897.
Following graduation with a teaching degree, he was selected by Oakland in the 12th round (92nd overall) of the 1962 AFL draft. Quarterback Roman Gabriel and NFL hall-of-famer Lance Alworth were the Raiders’ first two picks which went 34 rounds and 272 players.
However, Schwertfeger passed up the Raiders’ training camp, opting to try instead for the B.C. Lions which seems surprising until you know two things. Firstly, Gary had two Canadian roommates in university. So he’d heard all about the Canadian Football League. Secondly, Don Branby, a coach he’d had at Montana State, was now an assistant with B.C., so he knew there was someone on staff who knew what he could do.
He made the team which featured QB Joe Kapp, ball carriers Willie Fleming, Nub Beamer and Tom Larscheid, pass catchers Sonny Homer and Mack Burton, and “Headhunters” led by Tom Brown, Norm Fieldgate, By Bailey, Tom Hinton, Dick Fouts and Mike Martin on defence. Head coach was Dave Skrien. While the 1962 won-lost mark of 7-9 didn’t get them into playoffs, it was a huge step from the 1-13-2 of 1961.
The 1963 (12-4) and 1964 (11-2-3) regular seasons produced the first two double-digit-win years and an unbeaten record at home (except for that 21-10 loss to Hamilton in the ’63 Grey Cup final at Empire Stadium which perhaps you’ve heard still sticks in the craw of Joe Kapp and company). Then came the Lions treasured first Grey Cup title in ’64.
Schwertfeger played 52 of 64 regular-season games over four years. But when he was cut following training camp in 1966, he made a bold move by contacting Oakland who still held his U.S. rights. He was invited to “rookie” camp in 1967 and then to the team’s regular camp. That he stuck right to the final cuts before going to Sacramento was a sterling accomplishment considering the depth of the Raiders whose back-to-back 8-5-1 records in 1965 and 1966 were precursors to an-almost-unbeaten 1967.Schwertfeger’s season in Sacramento led to a teaching job for seven years at Rio Americano High in the California capitol where he also coached football and wrestling. By a twist of coincidence, Rio’s team nickname was the Raiders.
However, he missed Vancouver, telling me this week that while the sun shone all year in California, he preferred the change of seasons. So when he heard there was a teaching position open in West Van and that the school also needed a head football coach, his bags were packed. For almost the next three decades he was the face of West Van High football (and wrestling for the first eight years) along with assistant and former head coach Roger Kronquist with whom he worked for 15 years.
The pair built the program from the bottom up. Literally. They converted storage space they called “The Pit”, below the school’s small gym, into special football rooms for the senior and then the junior and Grade 8 teams.
He convinced the students’ council to purchase a mobile popcorn-making machine and used it to raise funds, with regular Friday afterschool sales in the hallway that were perfectly promoted by the sweet smell of freshly-made popcorn wafting through the halls as the afternoon bell rang.
Schwertfeger was an early and concurrent version of football coach Hayden Fox, the star of the popular Coach TV series from 1989-97. It never ceased to amaze me that whenever a phone call came in for Gary at noon hour or after school in the 1990s, there would be an announcement over the P.A. saying, “There’s a call for Coach on line so-and-so.” Even though there were numerous other longtime coaches in the school at the time – Kronquist, Wayne Desjardins, Bruce Holmes, Brian Lynch, Shaun McGuinness, Dave Rea and Tom Rippon among them – everyone knew the coach being referred to was Gary.
A year after his retirement in 2003, he went back for three years of teaching and coaching at Maple Ridge Christian School near where he lived. He’s now permanently retired in White Rock.
Half a dozen of Gary’s players played pro in the CFL: Trevor Bowles, Brooks and Anthony Findlay, Tony Martino, and Frank and Mark Pimiskern. Only Martino played on a Grey Cup champion and, of course, none played on a team during a season in which the team went to the Super Bowl.
This is episode 452 from Len Corben’s treasure chest of stories – the great events and the quirky – that bring to life the North Shore’s rich sports history.
COMMENTS
Let's keep comments:
We ask that all participants own their words by logging in with their Facebook account. It's a simple process that will take seconds and helps keep our comments free of trolls, cranks, and “drive-by” commenters.
We reserve the right to remove comments from anyone using screen names, pseudonyms or false identities. Please see our FAQ if you have questions or concerns about using Facebook to comment.