San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bill Duplissea — exlegislator, football star
“Maybe it would be overstating it to say he came in a room and the room lit up, but it would be pretty damn bright.”
He was a hulking football player who went on to become one of the last Republican legislators in the Bay Area.
But if Assemblyman Bill Duplissea towered over his colleagues in the state Capitol, he also made friends on both sides of the aisle. When Duplissea died Wednesday at age 70, after a brief bout with cancer, former San Francisco Mayor and longtime Assembly speaker Willie Brown remembered him as a conservative for Democrats.
“We were friends forever,” said Brown, now a Chronicle columnist, praising Duplissea’s ebullient persona and political savvy.
Duplissea was born in San Francisco but grew up in San Carlos, where he played high school football and later began his political career. Thickset and 6 feet 4, he played as a defensive tackle for the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State before he signed a contract in the Canadian Football League and tried out for the Dallas Cowboys.
Once his football days were over, Duplissea remade himself as a businessman with dry cleaning and truck trailer companies. A registered Democrat, he switched parties in 1986 to run for office in the affluent Peninsula district. At that time, California had a Republican governor and Duplissea was an outsider. His campaign included pot holders with a handsewn border and the slogan “Governor Deukmejian needs Bill Duplissea in the state assembly” stitched in red — now part of the collection at the San Mateo County Historical Museum.
He lasted only one term in the Assembly but stayed in politics, working as a lobbyist and serving on various boards, including as administrative director for the state’s Division of Workers’ Compensation under Gov. Pete Wilson. In 1991, U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner appointed Duplissea to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which serves the nine Bay Area counties.
Though he hailed from an area of bedroom communities lined with Eichler homes and wide boulevards, Duplissea was a city guy at heart, said John Burton, former chairman of the California Democratic Party. He wore tailored suits, spoke
John Burton, former chairman of California Democratic Party in a rich, booming voice, and added a fedora later in life. He charmed people who were archrivals in the Legislature, eating ice cream sundaes with Burton and earning praise from retired state Sen. Quentin Kopp, who remembered Duplissea as “the kind of American I admire.”
“I mean, maybe it would be overstating it to say he came in a room and the room lit up,” Burton said, “but it would be pretty damn bright.”
State Treasurer Fiona Ma had similar impressions of the giant, dapper man who trundled through the halls of the Capitol. He came to Ma’s office many times during her time in the Assembly, advocating for smallbusiness clients or issues related to veterans. His firm, Cline & Duplissea, has cultivated relationships and pressed legislation in Sacramento for nearly 22 years.
“Lobbyists are paid to represent their clients’ views, but Bill always gave me the other side” as well, Ma recalled. “He let me know what I needed to be aware of, what other people might say, and what type of situation I may be in. I could trust him.”
Duplissea’s thirst for political gamesmanship seemed to dovetail with his appreciation for sports, which persisted throughout his life. He once took his family on a vacation to visit historic stadiums in Chicago, New York, Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, watching ballgames by day and Broadway or comedy shows by night to placate both his son and daughter. His son, Bill, later played in the minor leagues and got a coaching job with the Kansas City Royals.
On Thursday, Burton went to Val’s Restaurant in Daly City, a steakhouse where he and Duplissea often met for lunch. This time Burton was dining with Brown when a familiar figure approached them. It was a priest who had just given Duplissea his last rites.
The priest turned to Burton. “We lost a good one,” he said.
Duplissea is survived by his wife, Sharon; daughter, Eleanor; son, Bill; grandchildren, Grace and Billy; and sister, Carroll Jung. Because of coronavirus restrictions, the family will hold a private funeral Mass at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in San Francisco at 1 p.m. Monday. Viewers can watch a live feed at bit.ly/IgnatiusLive Feed.
Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan