Dean of Coaches: Sacramento Waldorf’s Dean Stark sets section record for wins in obscurity
Dean Stark isn’t a superhero, but his players will argue otherwise. So might rival coaches who champion Stark as something as big as the game, and they certainly credit him as the one most responsible for taking small-school prep sports from games on the black top with bent rims to a measure of the big time.
In Stark’s quaint boys basketball office at Sacramento Waldorf School, the tree-lined campus tucked away off Banister Road up against the banks of the American River in Fair Oaks, there is a drawing of Iron Man on the wall. It’s a fitting image. For years, students have asked Stark if he is related to Tony Stark, who plays the role of the man behind the iron mask in the popular Marvel Comics series.
The relationship is in spirit and fantasy only, but what Stark has achieved as the region’s Dean of Coaches can be defined as something super — a legacy and career carved out of relative obscurity in the far reaches of prep sports, otherwise known as Division 6. He has redefined coaching longevity in a profession known to devour people whole, often in quick order.
His is a business of change and turnover, but Stark has remained a fixed star, an unyielding man on coaching values and principles of teamwork, effort, love and loyalty. He hasn’t changed much since he joined the school as a wide-eyed teacher/coach in 1984. He was 21 then, and he still has the energy of a man that age with about zero-percent body fat.
And no one outdresses Stark on game day. He has a closet full of nice suits, and wearing those leave the impression that what he does is important. It is. And the victories. Stark isn’t defined by those — he’s in this to mentor players — but since there are scoreboards and referees at games, the wins do count.
Entering the weekend, Stark stood alone and then some on top of the coaching mountaintop. He has pulled off quite the grand feat of amassing the most basketball victories in the history of the Sac-Joaquin Section, which stretches from Yuba City down past Turlock, up to Garden Valley on Highway 50 and toward Solano County. Stark’s 669 wins are testament to a career well done. No boys or girls coach in area history has won more. Not Bill Baxter at El Camino or Harvey Tahara at McClatchy. Just Stark, who is barreling toward 700 with no end in sight.
Stark is no miracle worker, though his coaching pals tease him about it. The recent wind and rain that pounded the region didn’t spare Waldorf. A tree fell on top of the library, and there was Stark and a host of other staffers on hand to help haul away books before the roof gave way. Of course Stark was there. He lives less than a mile from campus, but this is every bit home, too, and this is what Stark does. He fixes things. He makes things better. It’s not often that a coach is the face of a school, but that’s the case here.
“I’m disappointed that Dean didn’t just walk up to that tree and order it away, or just pick it up and shoved it to the side, because he can do anything. I mean, what’s the matter with you?” joked Sacramento Adventist Academy basketball coach Scott Tedmon, a rival and friend of Stark’s for 30 years. “No, really. Dean is to be celebrated for the person he is, the coach he is, the mentor he is. He’s truly one of a kind and we’re all lucky to have him.”
Small guys, big efforts
Sacramento Waldorf’s basketball team is about what you’d expect from a K-12 school in which there are 150 students at the high school level. Long and lanky with sharp minds and even sharper elbows. They compete because sports is fun, and they admire their coach, who each player will tell you is unlike anyone they’ve ever met.
There is no football program on this campus, which opened in 1959, and until Stark showed up nearly 40 years ago, there were no basketball or baseball teams, either. Stark started those. He even helped come up with the school mascot, and it’s as cool as he is — the Waves. It’s punchy, creative and fun. He was tasked with coming up with something unique. The Waldorf Whales didn’t sound right. Neither did the Waldorf Wharf Rats.
Stark was a baseball player and enthusiast at Mira Loma High School and American River College, but he fell in love with hoops. His brother, Terry Stark, was a football guy at Mira Loma who went on to become a 220-game winning high school football coach in the Sacramento region, mostly at Inderkum. Said that Stark about his brother, “What a great coach and what a career.”
Students don’t attend Waldorf to play sports. They go to learn, to soak in the rigorous academic grind, and athletics rounds out the experience. Stark is a legend here, but he’s not beyond doing the heavy lifting. He tapes the ankles of players before practice. He sweeps his own floor. He’s also an author, having written books about his Waldorf experiences and his coaching philosophy. He’s won 17 league championships in 35 years and directed 27 playoff teams. He’s won section Model Coach of the Year honors, state coaching honors and a number of other career accolades. And he gives every bit of effort every single day. When the effort light dims, he’ll step aside and let someone else coach.
“My style has always been as a grinder,” Stark said. “I live and die on every single possession. I remember a coach in the 1990s, years and years ago, told me that if I keep coaching like this, I’d be burned out in 10 years. I’m not as fiery as I once was, but I’m still into it, still demanding. It’s how I am, what I am. The changes are subtle and I’d like to think I’m a better coach.”
Stark has a no-cut policy. If a player wants to play basketball at Waldorf, he can, provided he cares and competes. His teams generally always do. Stark hasn’t had five-star prospects. Shoot, players here have no stars. The star is their coach.
Stark’s greatest player was Chris Schwartz-Edmisten, a prolific 6-foot-3 scorer who graduated in 2012 from Waldorf and starred at small-school Dominican in the Bay Area. He now coaches with Stark. Practices are as intense as ever, Schwartz-Edmisten said. Stark is forever the teacher, imploring ball movement, boxing out, hustling.
His current team is perhaps his most inexperienced, but the Waves are crashing everyone’s party. Waldorf is 17-5.
“That’s the biggest thing we have going for us, then and now, is that we play hard,” Schwartz-Edmisten said. “We’re not the biggest team, or the most skilled or fastest. But we play hard. Dean always gets the most out of his guys. It’s never changed, and that’s a testament to Dean. As a player, you have to prepare for every game. He prepares the same way as a coach. When you see your coach literally not take a second off in practice or in a game, how can we not have that same intensity?”
Stark has won a ton, but he hasn’t won what he covets most — a section championship. He’s been close, and his rivals root for him when they’re not playing against him.
“I just know that we had to beat the best to be the best, and that’s what happened when we beat Waldorf for the section title in 2017,” said Tedmon, the Sac Adventist coach. “When you play Dean, you know they’ll be fundamentally sound, that they’ll play hard. With or without a lot of talent, they’ll compete, and coaches love that. The other thing about Dean is he does it the right way. He’s gracious in victory and defeat, very humble. I just wish he didn’t outdress all of us.”
Life and loyalty
Stark’s first great team was in 1991, when the Waves had the audacity to beat several Bee top-10 teams in nonlegaue games or holiday tournaments. The Waves no longer play such programs, but those efforts long ago put the Waves on the regional map.
Along the way, Stark has wondered what it would be like to use his defensive principles and coaching style at a school that has 2,500 students and a bus load of player prospects. But he never wavered and never left. He belongs at Waldorf, he said, because it feels right.
“The thing about the small-school environment is it’s hard to retool and (say) ‘Let’s go!’” Stark said. “This year is a perfect example. I thought this could be a hard year for us. We had moments where we were unbelievably slow. We couldn’t guard anybody. We graduated nine seniors, returned four players, and three of them rarely saw the court. But they listen. They buy in. They want to get better.”
On Tuesday, the Waves produced their biggest win of the season, topping Encina Prep 64-59 in overtime, which the coach called “a total team effort” and “the best win of the year for us.”
“We were out-quicked at every spot,” Stark said. “Really had to dig deep. These guys are becoming a team.”
On Friday, a step closer. The Waves beat Foresthill 61-51, the coach saying: “We played great and pulled it out. My guys are sky high right now.”
Progress is precisely why Stark remains in the mix. He applauds all of their efforts. The Waves rotation includes a crew of grinders and overachievers and scholars in Zihao Chen, Ben Cope, Mickey Early, Rocco Hanson, Eli Neuhaus and Lucas Rivas. Players are spent after practices and games. Neuhaus is Stark’s tallest player at 6-4. He is learning by the week, but desire is never an issue. A 4.0 student, Neuhaus averages 15 rebounds per game. He plays in honor of a person who is not there to see him in person.
She watches from above, the player said.
“My mom, Ann Corbett, died when I was 11 from cancer,” Neuhaus said in a hushed tone during a recent practice. “She has the University of Santa Clara record for most rebounds in a game with 22 (in 1989), and that’s why I wear jersey No. 22. My goal is to get 22 rebounds in a game. I’ve been close. I think about her. I honor her by working hard, being a good student and teammate, living life to the fullest.”
In Stark, Neahaus and his teammates see a friend for life.
“Coach Stark has in a lot of ways mentored us, taught us how to be better athletes, better people,” Neuhaus said. “A lot of his basketball philosophies work in life, too. Yeah, we feel lucky to have him.”
Back in the game
Waldorf may be tucked away from the hustle and bustle of busy streets, but it is not immune to real-life issues. Stark worries about kids and mental health, of not finding themselves. A good many of the keepsakes Stark has proudly displayed in his office are from former players. Many keep in contact. Some stop by or call or text or email with a note of gratitude.
Jeff Dorso can relate. He is the senior vice president and general counsel for the Sacramento Kings, a 1993 Waldorf graduate forever inspired by Stark’s words and message. Dorso played soccer for the Oregon Ducks and basketball later at UC Davis, driven to be the best he could be because that’s what Stark instilled in him. You can’t cut a guy who outworks everyone.
“Dean does that,” Dorso said. “He’s with me. He impacted me. Part of his genius as a coach is his personality was always imprinted in his teams. He’s fiercely competitive, fiercely proud. You can’t control how big you are but you can control a lot of things. It’s a great message.”
There’s another bit of Stark’s genius, but how much of it is legend and comic-book fantasy? Brad Gunter Jr. coaches baseball and basketball at Valley Christian Academy in Roseville, a friend and admirer of Stark for decades.
“When I pitched against one of his teams years and years ago while in high school, a game at Waldorf, and there was a Phillies scout there, and something else,” Gunter said. “There was a bull tied to a tree. I’m not kidding. A bull. How do you focus? Looking back, great move, Dean! Distract the pitcher with a bull.”
Dorso said there were cows at Waldorf baseball games, grazing, and none more beloved than Betsy the Cow. A bull? Well, maybe. Tedmon of Sacramento Adventist Academy recalls coaching a baseball game with Victory Christian years ago and being distracted by goats.
“Smart coach, that Stark,” Tedmon said.
Added Gunter in a more serious tone, “Dean is great. Everything about him. He stepped aside for a year a few years ago to tend to a bad back. It almost took him away from coaching. He was about to hang it up if he couldn’t get his back right because he didn’t want to let his players down if he couldn’t be all in. Dean went to the length of the world to find people to help him with his back, stretching exercises, to feel better, to continue to coach, and he did. That’s commitment.”
Gunter added, “The whole climate of small-school sports, schools without football, changed because of Dean. A lot of us got to ride his coattails, but there’s only one Dean. And what I like most is he’s so stinking happy these days.”
Happiness comes in the form of a career he embraces. He’s married to a life partner in Aimee Stark, his biggest fan and maybe the only one fit enough to keep up with the old coach on hikes and world travels. Stark is 35 years into this coaching gig and has a lot more to give.
“I’m proud,” he said. “Really proud of what we’ve done. I always try to keep things fresh, a new motivational topic, keep them excited. . It’s been a great time, and it’s a great school. I couldn’t be happier.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2023 at 6:00 AM.