Stephen Phelps — educator, leader at parochial schools
Stephen Phelps, president of Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School and a teacher, coach and administrator who shaped the lives of thousands of kids as a leader at two of the Bay Area’s most prestigious Catholic high schools, died Tuesday after suffering two heart attacks during heart bypass surgery. He was 73.
In a letter to the Bishop O’Dowd High School community, where Phelps had served as president since 2005, Principal James Childs called Phelps’ death “abrupt and shocking, especially so because of the vitality that Steve always embodied.”
“His care for people and palpable optimism were characteristics that draw folks to O’Dowd and that have positively impacted so many,” he said. “He was teacher, coach, advocate and friend to numerous folks throughout his extensive career . ... I am profoundly without words at the immensity of this loss.”
Phelps started his career as a coach and recreation worker in two of San Francisco’s poorest neighborhoods — the Fillmore and the Bayview districts — and that commitment to helping disadvantaged kids remained a central theme of his legacy as he climbed in the world of parochial education.
A native of Los Angeles, Phelps came to San Francisco to attend the University of San Francisco, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees, as well as a doctorate in educational leadership.
In 1972, Phelps took a full-time job at St. Ignatius as a social science teacher and coach. A year later he started S.I. Uplift, a summer school program aimed at increasing the school’s diversity. That program, which morphed over the years into Summer Prep and then the Magis Program, provided a gateway to prep school for hundreds of students, many of them African American kids from disadvantaged families. Phelps made sure that S.I. Uplift students remained engaged in the program by hiring them as teachers aides and afternoon counselors.
He also served as moderator of the school’s Black Students Union after it was launched in the early ’70s, and he coached a BSU basketball team that competed in the CYO Teenage League. His commitment to the Uplift students earned him the nickname White Shadow, after a thenpopular TV series that starred a blond basketball coach who worked with African American youths.
Phelps also pushed professional development at St. Ignatius, heading an initiative that encouraged young teachers to earn advanced degrees that would deepen their expertise in curriculum and instruction. He worked with USF and San Francisco State University to offer a number of credential and master’s classes at St. Ignatius, and many teachers — from St. Ignatius and other Catholic high schools — enrolled.
In 2005, he left St. Ignatius to become president of Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School. There he was credited with improving the school’s finances and expanding and renovating its buildings and classrooms. He raised funds to build O’Dowd’s Center for Environmental Studies, a 5,000square-foot educational facility that met the highest standard of sustainability. This past year, he put the finishing touches on a deal to purchase 20 acres of adjacent water district land. At the time of his death, he was working on an updated master plan for the school.
O’Dowd basketball coach Lou Richie, who was Phelps’ godson, said “Godfather was very innovative, very engaged and an incredibly hard worker.”
“He was very honest. He had no filter. He was able to say the difficult things that others can’t,” said Richie. “He was allowed to do that because he cared so much.”
Phelps is survived by his wife, Susan; his children, Amy and Chris; and Amy’s son, Boston. Services are still to be determined.