Remembering Mel Fontes: A Sacramento football coach known for kindness
Mel Fontes was a hugger.
Everyone was his friend because everyone mattered, people young and old, in the classroom, at sporting events, at the grocery store.
He was the life of the party, the even-keeled fellow with the shock of white hair and can’t-miss smile was a kind-hearted football coach for nearly 40 years in Sacramento, a lot of it in an era where water was considered weakness in a man’s sport. Fontes died Saturday at 90 of heart failure and old age, his family said, leaving behind a legacy of goodness as a beloved family man, teacher, coach and more.
“Everybody loved Melvin,” said Dave Hoskins, who spoke of his dear friend of more than 50 years. “When we coached together, it was good-guy, bad guy. I was the bad guy, working the guys hard in weight lifting and in conditioning, and Mel was the good guy where players would say, “Coach! Save us!’”
Hoskins and Fontes formed one of the great coaching duos in regional prep football history, punctuated with humor. They coached together at Christian Brothers High School in the 1960s and well into the ‘70s under famed coach and mentor Dick Sperbeck. The coaches founded the football program at brand-new Valley High of the Elk Grove Unified School District in 1977 and brought the school an immediate contender and a brand name.
Fontes and Hoskins were together for assistant coaching gigs in the 1980s at American River College and Sacramento City College, then back at Valley to head the program from 1989-95, coaching the school’s finest teams. They were involved in the first 25 Pig Bowls, the charity game that began in 1974, and the pals who prided themselves in calling themselves “older than dirt” capped their sideline stint together at Elk Grove High in the late 1990s, where they were part of some of the greatest football teams in the history of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section.
“Mel could make you cry, make you laugh, and whatever you needed, he was there for you,” Hoskins said. “He was a good coach, a good teacher who loved his family, and he was very good-natured, always with a smile on his face. Just a great man.”
Said Fontes in a 1999 Sacramento Bee interview: “I do cry a lot. I can be laughing one minute and crying the next, and I’ve never been ashamed of that. To me, it’s love, and if you don’t have love, you have nothing.”
Fontes’ brothers included NFL head coach
Fontes grew up in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His father, Caetano, was a Portuguese immigrant who worked for 35 years in the steel mills in Ohio.
Fontes was the oldest of five brothers, three of whom coached in the NFL, including Wayne Fontes as head coach with the Detroit Lions in the 1990s. Fontes did not desire a career coaching in the pros. He elected to coach at the high school level after graduating from Sacramento State, where he played running back from 1960-62. He landed his first teaching and coaching gig at Christian Brothers in Oak Park in 1963.
By the 1970s, with Sperbeck leading the charge, Christian Brothers became a trend-setting program. The Falcons became the first in regional history to implement year-round strength and conditioning programs, the first to have spring drills and the first to use a sophisticated passing offense in an era of the running game. Fontes is in the La Salle Club of Christian Brothers Hall of Fame for his years of work at the school as a teacher and coach.
Fontes early in his time in Sacramento married Connie, his bride of 65 years. They had sons Kris, Kevin and Keith, all of whom played high school football, and a daughter, Kelly. Fontes told The Bee in 1990 that he did not pursue NFL coaching jobs because he felt at home at the local high school and college level.
“I was happy here,” Fontes said then from his Valley High social studies room. “I didn’t want to pull my kids out of school and move all the time, and I enjoyed teaching. Coaching is still coaching - making a difference - no matter what level.”
Kevin Fontes said Monday that his father was “a giver” and that “he left a legacy in this community because he touched so many people. “
He added, “He was more than just a football coach. He cared about you as a person, and asked how you were, and he was sincere. And yes, he could cry and laugh. A very emotional guy.”
Kevin Fontes said his family was delighted that the man of the hour was able to attend a 90th celebration in September when family members from across the country came to visit.
“My dad loved parties,” Kevin Fontes said. “He loved being with people, celebrating anything, laughing, telling stories.”
Finding future NFL stars on campus
Do to over population at Elk Grove High and Burbank High on Florin Road, Valley opened in 1977 with an unheard-of four-year class. The football team brought instant attention to the school, and students attended games in droves. The Vikings went 5-5 that season, a team quarterbacked by Marshall Sperbeck, son of Dick Sperbeck.
Marshall Sperbeck set regional passing records in 1977, and Kevin Fontes set area receiving marks before he starred at Sacramento State. Marshall Sperbeck was Sac State’s head coach from 2007-14.
In the late 1970s and early ‘80s at Valley, Fontes and Hoskins discovered, inspired and coached-up players who wound up making plays in the NFL, including defensive lineman Charles Mann and tight end Robert Awalt.
Fontes taught history, social studies and driver’s education at Valley, where students were known to earn his charm by bringing snacks, or his favorite of potato salad. In 1996, Fontes saved a Valley student on campus from choking, and she sent him flowers “for saving my life.” Fontes reminded to a full class, “This is why we do not eat in class!’”, never mind the hypocrisy.
Fontes always kept his cool, Hoskins said. Mostly.
Hoskins recalled a story in which a Valley student in a panic stomped on the gas pedal and not the brake as the vehicle entered the Valley parking lot. There was a collision, and the building shook, Hoskins recalled.
“There was Mel with coffee dripping off his glasses and onto his new white sweater,” Hoskins said. “The girl said, ‘Mr. Fontes, did I pass?’ Mel said, ‘Hell no, you didn’t pass!’ That was one of the few times I ever saw him angry.”
Snuck out of hospital for football function
Fontes retired as a coach following the 1999 Pig Bowl, the same year he retired as a full time teacher.
In 1994, Fontes did his best to coach the Pig Bowl, though his body, family and doctors argued otherwise. Fontes slumped at a Pig Bowl practice, grabbing onto a chain-link fence to break his fall. Coaches had to hold Fontes in place on the gurney as he was slid into the back of an ambulance. Fontes argued that he was fit to finish team drills.
After an hour in a Sacramento hospital, with his physician down the hall checking on another patient, Fontes made a move. He pulled out the intravenous lines in his arm, got dressed, ducked out a side door and attended the Pig Bowl dinner. Hoskins said it was “like watching ghost come in, but he was in a great mood.”
Fontes later went back to the hospital for a quadruple-bypass heart surgery.
Hoskins said he already misses Fontes and another founding member of the Valley faculty and football staff in Rick Swan, who also coached with Hoskins and Fontes at Elk Grove.
And last month, longtime Jesuit teacher and coach Ross Evans died.
“Some great guys,” Hoskins said.
A celebration of life for Fontes will be held May 6 at 11 a.m. at Saint Peter and Paul Church in Rocklin, followed by a reception in the parish hall.
This story was originally published April 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM.