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SANTA CRUZ — Word spread like wildfire Thursday that legendary Santa Cruz High coach Bill Dodge passed away a day earlier in his sleep. He was 94.

Stories of greatness were shared about the teacher, one of the most successful and iconic coaches in Santa Cruz County history. Colorful anecdotes spilled from his former players’ mouths between hearty chuckles and flowing tears. They all, to a man, attempted to imitate their slender leader’s unforgettable, uniquely deep voice. Some of them hadn’t heard it in decades; others just before the COVID-19 pandemic. His voice, like his lessons, were seared into their minds, as well as their heavy hearts.

“It was from the guts,” Mike DiTano, a Dodge protégé, said of his coach’s voice. “He was not a big man. It was from the diaphragm.”

Time and again, Dodge proved that his bite matched his bark. His basketball and baseball players learned that firsthand. They also learned that effort, as well as respect for themselves and the game, were paramount. If they followed those rules, success was sure to follow.

“He was a constant for generations of athletes to achieve goals they didn’t think they could reach,” said Daniel Dodge, his son.

A celebration of life will be held this summer.

Dodge’s tenacious efforts to get the most out of his students, on the field and in the classroom, will not be forgotten anytime soon. Santa Cruz High made sure of that when they named its new baseball field in his honor in 2000.

“They built that field for his memory,” said Bob Kittle, an assistant baseball coach at West Valley College after serving as head coach at Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College. “He meant a lot to a lot of people. He earned it. They guy is a legend, more than a legend. He will be missed.”

A former catcher at Watsonville High and Hartnell College, he suffered a career ending knee injury. He married his high school sweetheart, Roberta Luce, in 1950, three years removed from high school, and started a family. They had two children.

The family moved to Santa Cruz after Dodge earned a degree and took a teaching job at Santa Cruz. He coached varsity baseball for the Cardinals from 1957-’86, lightweight basketball from 1956-’59, and varsity basketball from 1960-72, but, really, he never stopped offering instruction, solicited or not, after giving up his job titles.

Former Cardinals baseball player Jerry Malmin can attest to that. Decades after graduating, he ran into Dodge at a gas station, which Dodge deemed an opportune location to give him hitting lessons.

In 30 seasons on the baseball diamond, Dodge earned a 515-264 record with 14 league crowns, a Tournament of Champions title in 1963, and three appearances in the Central Coast Section finals (1969, ’70 and ’76). His varsity basketball program won four league championships, including three straight from 1966-’68.

Dodge always deferred credit for his success. “The players are the ones who do it,” he told the Sentinel in 2013. “The coach is like, ‘Who’s here?,’ ” he added, as he pretended like he was taking attendance.

He was elected into the California Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, Santa Cruz High Athletics Hall of Fame in ’18, and California Coaches Association Hall of Fame in ’19. The coach believed that Dodge Field and his awards were as much his players’ as they were his.

“He spent an untold number of hours with all kinds of athletes,” Daniel. said. “He helped generations of families from our community.”

DiTano, a 1981 Santa Cruz graduate, not only played for Dodge, he also lived next door to his coach in his youth.

“Everything I know about about baseball came from playing for him and, later, coaching with him,” DiTano said. “He was the king of fundamentals, and he was relentless.”

DiTano said the coach had standards and stuck to them. If you couldn’t bunt, you didn’t play. If you couldn’t slide, he’d having you execute 50 slides in foul territory during the middle of a game. And if you were a minute late to practice or a game, you ran all day.

He rarely waited for an excuse for the tardiness. “Run,” he’d immediately bellow. Or, “Take off.”

He had the same rules for all his players, whether they were stars or reserves, one of his former players, ex-MLBer Glenallen Hill, told the Sentinel. Everyone, Dodge believed, needed to be accountable and game ready.

It wasn’t uncommon for DiTano, a pitcher, to throw a bullpen session outside Dodge’s accounting classroom — located on the third floor of the historic main building on campus.

“I was stupid enough to take his accounting class,” said baseball player Steve Pacheco, a teammate of DiTano’s. “He’d have me working on my swing with a ruler in another room, teaching me how to go opposite field. He was like a father figure to me because he was the next thing in my life as far as discipline.”

DiTano remembers he had a regrettable exchange with one umpire ahead of a playoff game against Watsonville and was ejected before a pitch was ever thrown. Dodge made DiTano spend the entire game running laps around the field, which included a route along the warning track in the outfield, for all spectators to witness.

Not everyone ran, said Kristian Sorensen, a ’69 Santa Cruz graduate who played basketball and baseball for Dodge. He recalled when star teammate Gary Ghidinelli, who went on to play basketball and baseball at San Jose State University, showed up one minute late to baseball practice because he was getting a special haircut. Dodge made him duck walk for 15-20 minutes. (Those who’ve done it know the exercise is torture on the lower body.)

“He was never late again,” Sorensen said. “Neither was anyone else.”

For Dodge, attention to detail was key, as was maximum effort. His players respected him because what he taught was for their benefit, and translated into success.

“It was the little things and the repetitions,” Pacheco said. “He’d have you do things until they became second nature.”

DiTano said he often heard Dodge’s deep voice calling out to him from over the fence, asking his pitcher to join him at the ballpark on a Sunday afternoon, before he attended church. The lanky coach didn’t wear catcher’s gear for the sessions and took a beating as he blocked curve after curve that DiTano bounced in the dirt.

“He was just so tough,” DiTano said. “He worked so hard for you, so you worked hard for the guy.”

Dodge saw something in each of his players, long before they saw it in themselves.

Sorensen was the ninth or 10th man on the lightweight basketball team’s depth chart as a freshman. Dodge called him up to train on varsity.

“I was the tallest player, but I could barely walk and chew gum,” said Sorensen, pausing as he fought back tears. “By the end of the year, I was the sixth man on a championship team.”

Dodge always knew how to get his players motivated. Sorensen remembers a basketball game against Seaside during his senior year. The Spartans always seemed to have different players each year, likely because of the school’s proximity to Fort Ord, a former U.S. Army post.

“They had some pretty big guys,” Sorensen said.

Dodge pulled Sorensen from the game nice and early. “I don’t think you can take that guy,” he said during Sorensen’s rare benching. When Sorensen re-entered the game, he had one of his best games and the Cardinals won.

Even when things went well, Dodge found something to harp on during his passionate halftime speeches. After the Cardinals dominated rival Soquel in the first half of a game at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, they fully expected Dodge to tear into them.

The players gathered in the cramped locker room, which was being used to store a piano, and waited for their coach to enter. “What the (frick) is he going to get mad about this time?” said Sorensen, recalling he and his teammates’ chatter.

When Dodge entered, he pointed to a talented musician on the team and had him play the piano for the entire half. “He was full of surprises sometimes,” Sorensen said.

But nothing surprised Sorensen more than after he graduated. He suffered an arm injury pitching for San Jose State, and was sidelined two seasons. It was Dodge, not one of his SJSU coaches, who played catch with him daily so that he could build up his arm strength and return to the field.

It wasn’t an isolated instance. Kittle had a third baseman, Chris Kelly, who had issues making the throw across the diamond. He asked Dodge if he could help his player out. Dodge showed up for an hour ever day for the next eight weeks to help fix Kelly’s throwing mechanics and remedy the problem.

Dodge was the same way as a teacher. He used to pound the pavement in Downtown Santa Cruz, seeking internships and job placement for his accounting students.

“His service and dedication went well beyond the diamond,” his son said.

An avid newspaper reader and always in the know, Dodge penned hundreds of hand-written letters to athletes or others throughout the community, voicing his support, or offering congratulations on one of their recent accomplishments.

Santa Cruz historian Geoffrey Dunn, a former Soquel baseball player who later coached at Santa Cruz, received one such letter.

“He was a character, an opponent, and a friend,” Dunn said. “He wrote me a letter when I had cancer. It was about being a fierce competitor. … It’s a sad day for me.”

After retiring from coaching, Dodge and his wife continued to show up at basketball and baseball games until her passing in 2015. Their daughter, Suanne, died in ’16.

It was around that time that Dodge was diagnosed with dementia.

Dodge stayed away from Santa Cruz those two years, but returned with fervor. So much so, that Cardinals athletics director Erik Redding contacted all his coaches and let them know that if Dodge walked in on any of their practices, that he had carte blanche.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kittle said of Dodge’s attendance at games. “He watched more games that I was a part of than my parents.”

Javier Felix, a senior on the Cardinals’ baseball team, and his parents, Hector and Erica, served as caregivers for Dodge after his wife passed. They took turns picking him up from La Posada Retirement Community and ushered him to West Cliff Drive for daily walks, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They took him out for meals, and treated him dessert — plenty of Cardinals events.

Dodge always ran into someone he knew. He struggled remembering names, but his face lit up when he saw a familiar face, particularly a former player.

Dunn, who helped Dodge research Santa Cruz sports to help start the school’s athletics Hall of Fame, remembers attending a funeral for Soquel coach Ken Thomas in 2015. Dunn, seated next to Pete Hamm, a ’65 Soquel graduate who went on to pitch for Stanford University and MLB’s Minnesota Twins, saw Dodge a few rows back and waved.

“Is that Bill Dodge?” asked Hamm, who played for Dodge as a freshman, before being forced to transfer to Soquel after it opened in ’62.

Dunn nodded.

“I learned more from that man my freshman year at Santa Cruz High than I did from anyone else in my entire career,” Hamm told Dunn.

“They talked for one and a half hours after the funeral,” Dunn said. “They hadn’t seen each other in 50 years and bonded immediately.”

If you were a former Cardinals player, you were family. And if you were family, you were also a player.

“I had batting practice every day,” said Daniel Dodge, making it sound like a punishment. “My sister could switch hit by the time she was 7 years old.”

Suanne played softball at Cabrillo and San Diego State after shining as a Cardinal.

Dodge took accounting jobs and continued to coached baseball each summer. It was his life.

“A vacation for us was Candlestick Park,” his son said.

The sport consumed Dodge. And he made sure he passed his love for it onto others, until his final breath.

“He never quit being a coach,” Daniel said. “He never quit his love for it.”