Remembering Frank Calcagno: Beloved El Camino baseball coach dies at 83 years old
Several things stand out about Frank Calcagno when he entered a room or a ball field, or when he comes up in memory and reflection: The silver fox hair and mustache. The deep baritone voice. His kindness. And his ability to inspire a group of teenagers, be it baseball players or students in his U.S. history or government classes.
A beloved coach and teacher at El Camino High School for more than three decades, stretching into the last part of the 1990s, Calcagno was known for being one of the top coaches and very best people in education and athletics. He enjoyed his retirement on the golf course and as an usher at Kings games. He died last week in his sleep at 83 of heart failure.
“Dad had some heart issues for a number of years, pacemakers, stents, and his heart finally ran out,” said Kevin Calcagno, one of three Calcagno sons to Frank and his wife of 56 years, Sandy. “He shared his heart with so many people that he had very little heart left for himself. What an amazing father and man. We all miss him.”
Calcago was a multi-sport star athlete at Fremont High in Oakland who played basketball at Sacramento City College and Sacramento State. He started coaching at Grant High in Del Paso Heights in the 1960s, mentoring eventual first-round draft picks such as Leron Lee and Taylor Duncan. He was hired at El Camino in 1974 to head the baseball program and to teach history and geography.
Calcagno won nearly 500 games as baseball coach, his white hair and mustache a stark contrast to the school’s kelly green colors, and led a number of league championship teams and playoff teams. His best player was Derrek Lee, a first-round draft pick in 1993 out of El Camino who had a long Major League career. Lee’s father, Leon Lee, played for Calcagno at Grant decades earlier. Leon wanted his son to be mentored by his mentor.
“When we hired Frank, it was Grant’s loss and our gain because he was an outstanding teacher and coach,” said Jim Dimino, the longtime athletic director at El Camino. “Frank had a big-time reputation. He was the consummate of a father, grandfather, family member, friend, teacher, coach, mentor, a class act in everything he did. I worked with him for many years, and that included lunch every day. I saw the man regularly for decades, right up until recently. Saw him the day before he died. It’s a shocker. He really impacted and affected people.”
Rob Cooper is proof of the Calcagno impact. Now the Penn State head baseball coach, Cooper played for Calcagno at El Camino in the late 1980s. But before he reached the varsity level, he needed emotional support. Cooper lost his father, Bob, to a heart attack when he was finishing his first year of high school.
“Happened at the end of my freshman year, a Thursday night and the last day of school was the next day,” Cooper said. “I’m sitting in class, and the teacher takes me outside. There’s Coach Calcagno. Gives me a hug and told me everything will be OK. I’ll never forget it. It was a time in my life where I needed something. My dad was a history teacher like Calcagno, and that was a common connection. Coach encouraged me to hang in there, to get into sports, to get into coaching. He was such a great influence on my life. When I left El Camino, I wanted to be him. I wanted to be Frank Calcagno.”
Cooper added, “Calcagno wasn’t just a good history teacher. He was a great teacher. Students loved him. He liked to say, ‘Yo!’ to people when you called his name, and on my baseball cap this week, I added, ‘Yo.”
Calcagno’s school office was a combination of a baseball storage unit and a library, the place dotted with trophies, old caps, mitts, score books and geography books and history lesson plans. The voicemail told the caller that they had reached the U.S. history department and the El Camino baseball office, in that order.
“Frank was always so proud of his teaching,” wife Sandy once told The Bee.
Calcagno once said he got into coaching because, “The game and the kids, they get in your blood, and it’s hard to give that up.”
Calcagno’s poise and calm to handle allowed him to get through his darkest day in education. In January of 1997, El Camino junior Gregg Fox collapsed while doing baseball conditioning drills, the victim of what was later diagnosed as a collapsed heart valve. The boy died in Calcagno’s arms, some 50 other students standing nearby in a state of sadness and shock.
“The saddest thing any of us can ever imagine,” Calcagno said shortly thereafter. “None of us will ever get over it.”
Calcagno found a moment of joy in 2006, at Arco Arena, the last time the Kings won a playoff game. Working as an usher, pointing people to their seats, Calcagno joked then that he took the gig in teaching retirement to get a closer view of the Kings. When Kevin Martin hit a game winner against San Antonio, Calcagno celebrated, telling The Bee, “My vertical leap wasn’t much, but I had my fist in the air!”
As much as Calcagno enjoyed teaching and coaching or collecting hundreds of beer cans to put on display in his garage, his greatest pleasures were wife Sandy, whom he met at Sacramento City College, and their three sons: Kevin, Keith and Kyle.
“When mom turned 40, dad arranged for the El Camino marching band to stop by as a surprise, in our backyard,” Keith Calcagno said. “Mom loved it. Dad was so cool. He was quick and clever, some corny humor. He was smooth, and had that voice, which of course added to his legend.”
Sandy told The Bee the week her husband retired from teaching and coaching, “When I’m at the grocery store writing a check, checkers look at me and say, ‘Are you the wife of Mr. Calcagno?’ Yes, thank you. Yes I am!”
Calcagno’s service will be March 18 at 10:30 a.m. at Divine Mercy Catholic Church at 2231 Club Center Drive in Sacramento.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:00 AM.