He launched area football teams 60 years ago. Now 83, ‘Wise One’ is still in the game

His legs and hip might be failing him at 83, but Frank Negri’s eyes and his football IQ are still as sharp as ever.

Now helping the Rio Linda Knights, Negri started coaching football at Highlands High when the school launched in 1957. He then debuted football at Rio Linda High in 1962 as its first coach before moving to Foothill High in 1965 as that school’s first coach.

Negri coached the Mustangs for 41 years and had recent stints as an assistant at Natomas and Roseville high schools. Friday night, his coaching career came full circle as he watched the Knights host the Mustangs from atop the press box on the last night of summer.

Negri’s Knights throttled the Mustangs in a non-league game 70-50, improving to 4-1 while Foothill suffered its first loss in five games. Rio Linda scored as many points (14) in the first half than Foothill had allowed in its first four games (12).

“I’m the eye in the sky now,” Negri said. “(Knights) coach (Jack Garceau) runs a lot of the same stuff I did for years. He listens or he doesn’t listen, but it’s a great way to stay involved with the game.”

Negri, long retired as a teacher, attends every practice as well as each game. Hip replacement surgery in January hasn’t slowed him down, he said. He still enjoys the daily banter with the coaches and especially the players, who he said haven’t changed much since the days when he coached young players sporting helmets without facemasks.

“It’s become more of a social thing now,” said Negri, who’s listed in the program not as a coach but simply as the “Wise One”. “I mean, how much golf or gardening can one man do? I don’t want to ever stop being around the game and this keeps me going.”

Plus, Negri said, the players all love him because he never yells at them. “I’m not a coach worried about X’s and O’s anymore. They’re all like my grandkids to me. You never yell at your grandkids. I let the coaches do that.”

The two favorite grandkids Friday night might have been Cameron Skattebo and Tyson Ybarra.

Skattebo started the game with a 90-yard kickoff return for a score and added scoring runs of three, 12 and 59 yards. He loves contact and seeks it on every carry, which instantly endears him to Negri. Ybarra had two touchdown tosses to Kyle Deloney-Spencer and Abraham Banks, scored on a nifty keeper, and added a 48-yard sprint on another keeper. He also was a factor at free safety.

Foothill was paced by William Goebbel’s TD runs (four and three yards) and a 29-yard pass play to Eddie DeSoto Jr.

Negri played football at Hollywood High and was a teammate of Fred Roos, who went on to produce “The Godfather” for Francis Ford Coppola and won a Best Picture Oscar for “The Godfather II.”

Negri later played for Los Angeles Valley College, got a scholarship at Oregon State and played one year as a wide receiver for the Beavers before finding a teaching and coaching job at Highlands High, where most of the students were children of personnel at nearby McClellan Air Force Base.

“My wife and I didn’t want to return to Los Angeles, and the area around here was just so wide open and the growth was exciting,” Negri said. “I tell our players a little about the history of Rio Linda High, that it was built on a chicken ranch, and they just look at me with a blank stare.”

Garceau was an assistant under Mike Morris from 2001 and took over the program two seasons ago. Morris came from the Negri coaching tree, Garceau said, as did Rick Collier, the Knights defensive-line coach. Garceau said he pays Negri in “adult beverages.”

“Having a guy like (Negri) up there with that much experience is invaluable,” Garceau said. “I’ll be overcomplicating something and he’ll be yelling some blocking tidbit that just simplifies my world.”

Garceau has noticed Negri uses less salty language.

“He still gets hyped up,” Garceau said. “But he has toned (the language) down considerably. I think he’s trying to get into heaven.”