Hatzenbuhler remembered
Rick Esparza and Joe Davidson grew up in one-high school towns.
Both men know what it is like to play for their respective town’s high school football teams; through the early, hot days of an early September evening through the cold and rainy days of an early to mid-November. They also knew what it was like to strap on the shoulder pads and the chin straps of their helmets, and have many conversations with the man known as ‘Coach Hatz’.
Next Thursday, Erv Hatzenbuhler, the former Galt High football coach who led many Warrior teams to league and Sac-Joaquin Section titles and playoff appearances during two different tenures — 1967-89 and 2003-05 — will be remembered. Hatzenbuhler, a Lodi High graduate who was a standout in football and baseball, died in his sleep at his Galt home on Dec. 29. A memorial funeral Mass will be held at St. Christopher’s Catholic Church in Galt at 11 a.m. A reception will follow at the Moose Lodge in Woodbridge at 1 p.m.
Esparza was a starting junior fullback and safety on the 1985 Galt High football team that captured the Golden Empire League and section’s Division III titles. A 1987 Galt High graduate, he was also on the 1986 Galt squad that witnessed Hatzenbuhler, who taught physical education at Galt High for 30 years, have a heart attack during a home game against Lincoln of Lincoln.
During his youth, Esparza experienced the impact of Hatzenbuhler, considered a mastermind of the single-wing
offense, which has no quarterback. The center snaps the ball to one of the team’s three running backs, who could be lined up behind an offensive lineman. Plus, the offensive line can be unbalanced, which makes the single-wing attack more dangerous.
“As I played Pop Warner, my dad questioned why we ran the single wing,” Esparza said. “(At the youth level) all the teams ran it from the junior varsity team on the Pop Warner squad to the varsity team at the high school.”
Now at Galt High in the early 1980s, Esparza recalls what Hatzenbuhler expected of every player who wanted to play Warrior football.
“I remember the talk about Coach Hatz was that ... you better be ready to learn and listen,” recalled Esparza. “He was a no-nonsense coach, but taught fundamentals of the game well.”
The beginning of the 1985 season was not kind to Esparza and his teammates. One of Galt football players’ father died. The Warriors lost two of their three non-league games of the season. But Hatzenbuhler pulled that team together to rally and win the league and section titles.
“Everything fell into place just as Hatz said it would,” Esparza said. “He would always tell us to make sure we tackled, hit, ran and threw the ball well because every team that we played was that much better than we were ... the season was a dream season in regards to how it unfolded. He was a big reason if not
reason.” Esparza remembers the Galt-Lincoln game during which Hatzenbuhler had his heart attack. Hatzenbuhler continued to coach, but with a physician nearby. As soon as the game was over, Hatzenbuhler was whisked away into an ambulance and taken to a hospital. He returned to practice the following Monday.
“I think the stress of 1986 got to Coach Hatz,” said Esparza, whose squad missed the playoffs with the loss to Lincoln. “I remember the pressure of having to win to get into the playoffs (again), and we just couldn’t turn the corner in that game.”
Davidson has been covering prep and pro sports for The Sacramento Bee since 1988. Davidson, who grew up in small town in Oregon, knew what football in Galt meant to a city that now has an approximate population 23,498.
“Erv was the classic old-school throwback coach,” Davidson said. “For a young reporter getting started at The Bee, I was delighted to get to watch him coach, lead, win. He was entertaining to watch ... and to talk to. Having grown up playing sports in a small town, I can appreciate the one-school town.”
Davidson, who also covered the Sacramento Kings during their winning ways from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, feels people living in this area gravitated toward Galt football because it was the thing to do in the late summer months to early fall during both of Hatzenbuhler’s tenures.
“Erv’s greatest joy was coaching his son, Mark (1987-89), and then watching Mark play at Stanford in the early 1990s, which is why Erv stepped away from Galt the first time,” Davidson said.
Hatzenbuhler returned to Galt football in the mid-1990s, this time as the school frosh-soph football coach. The 1994 and ’95 teams posted a combined 19-1 record. Most of those players, including current Galt football coach Jermaine Allen, went on to play on the 1997 Galt football team that won a share of the Sierra Valley Conference title and returned to the D-II playoffs.
After taking the 1996 football season off to run for his first of three terms on the Galt Joint Union Elementary School District’s board of trustees, Hatzenbuhler returned to his alma mater at Lodi High. Then he served as defensive coordinator at Franklin and Bear Creek toward the end of the 1990s through 2002.
In 2003, Hatzenbuhler and Warren Schroeder, a 1993 Galt High graduate who played in the Warriors’ football program, served as co-coaches for the ’03 football team. Hatzenbuhler became the outright head coach in 2004, in which he led that team — now running the Wing-T offense — to an 8-3-1 record for a second place in the SVC and advanced into the second round of the D-II playoffs.
“Erv’s second tenure showed how great a coach he was, putting life into the Warriors and impacting lives forever,” Davidson said. “Erv’s passions were family, faith and football, and no one did it better.”
Hatzenbuhler drew more respect from other members of the media. John Williams, the SVC commissioner who lives in Galt, was Sports Editor at The Galt Herald for most of the 1980s. In the initial story of Hatzenbuhler’s passing in the Dec. 30 issue, Williams, talked about how he got to know Hatzenbuhler better during Williams’ Herald days than when he played baseball for the coach, who ran the program from 1968 until 1973.
The first time I met Hatzenbuhler was spring 2003. At the time I was Sports Editor at The Galt Herald, for most of the 2000s. After he and Schroeder were named co-coaches, Hatzenbuhler invited me to his house where he and his wife of 55 years, Betty, for dinner; steak with the trimmings. We watched a Major League Baseball game on TV; I believe it was the San Francisco Giants who were playing. Their family dogs were outside, both adopted from the animal shelter. More than certain they wanted to eat our steak dinners, sans the side dishes.
During my Herald days, Hatzenbuhler was always great to talk to — whether it was about the 2004 and ’05 Galt football teams, college football and the NFL, plus Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association that included the Sacramento Kings, and life itself.
The one quote that will always stick in my head for the rest of my life was after a 2004 SVC game against Cordova at Warrior Stadium, in which Galt and Cordova ended in a 21-21 tie. Paraphrasing, Hatzenbuhler said, “A tie is like a brother and sister kissing each other on the lips.”
The final football game Hatzenbuhler coached would be Nov. 10, 2005 at Rosemont in the SVC finale. The Warriors posted a 64-14 win over the Wolverines. Then a year later, the field at Warriors Stadium was named after him — Erv Hatzenbuhler Field.
A husband, father of two adult children in Leslie and Mark, both of whom are Galt High graduates, devoted Catholic, teacher and football coach, Hatzenbuhler will be remembered as a man who encouraged people to do their best; be it in PE classes, on the gridiron and life.
From 2006 to this past high school football season, Hatzenbuhler pulled out a lawn chair and sat at the north end of the end zone at Warrior Stadium, donning his Galt football coaching attire; a red and white polo shirt and red sweats and jacket if the weather was a little nippy.
Although he’s gone, but one could imagine Hatzenbuhler’s presence will continue to be felt at that end zone when the 2017 Galt football team plays its first home game of the season in nine months, and afterwards.