Obituary of Vic Rowen

Vic Rowen who built San Francisco State into a small-college football powerhouse in the 1960s and nurtured a long list of coaches that included Andy Reid and Mike Holmgren, died late Monday night. He was 93. The San Francisco residentdied atKaiser Permanente Vacaville Medical Centerof complications following a broken hip sustained in a fall while visiting his family in Chico, his family said. Under him, the Gators won five Far Western Conference titles in the 1960s. He recruited such talents as future NFL players Floyd Peters, a three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle; Bill Baird, a defensive back who helped the New York Jets shock the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III; and Elmer Collett, a former 49ers guard who made the 1969 Pro Bowl. Mr. Rowen had a 132-173-10 record at SF State in a career that ran from 1961 to 1989. After the student strike of 1968, the football program struggled. After 1973, it didn't have another winning season. The program was dropped in 1994, five years after he retired. "Cox Stadium is a soccer (and track) field now," he told The Chronicle in 2011. "They put more than $1 million into it. I wish they'd done that when I was there." Because of tight budgets, some of his teams had to raise money for road trips by selling hot dogs at campus functions. Jim Sochor, the Gators' defensive coordinator before becoming a highly successful head coach at UC Davis, said, "He was so knowledgeable about football. He was as passionate as any coach who ever lived." He was also tireless. Three of the assistants went with Mr. Rowen on a recruiting trip to Southern California, Sochor said. There was no money for plane fare, hotels or restaurants, so the head coach had his wife, Selma, make sandwiches. Mr. Rowen drove. They saw recruits in Bakersfield and Santa Barbara and attended a clinic at UCLA. Mr. Rowen decided they should go to San Diego State's spring game that night because the Aztecs were on the Gators' schedule the next fall. Then Mr. Rowen drove all the way back to San Francisco. "We got back at 7 in the morning," Sochor said. "We were dead. He was indefatigable."Working for Mr. Rowen was "a lot of fun," he said. "That's what really got me into the game." He was a pioneer in the West Coast offense long before it was given the name, said Bob Toledo, who threw 45 touchdown passes for the Gators his senior year. Toledo, who has served as head coach at Pacific, UCLA and Tulane, is now offensive coordinator at San Diego State. "I've been coaching for 40 years, and I have to say he was the most influential person in my life outside my father," Toledo said. "He taught me everything about coaching and about integrity. Every decision I made in my career, I'd call him first." Reid, who was on Mr. Rowen's staff in the mid-1980s, said, "He was a great coach and a great coach of coaches. He'd have you get on the board and detail the play. You had better be on your toes." Like Holmgren with the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks, Reid coached in the Super Bowl, with the Philadelphia Eagles. He recently was named coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. Mr. Rowen served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army 101st Airborne during World War II. Reid said his mentor, who was Jewish, jokingly "gave me a hard time about being a Mormon." He didn't talk much about his war stories, but he did confide in Reid. "His primary goal was to find Hitler," Reid said. "That's why he joined the service. He was one of the toughest human beings I've ever been around. He was tougher than shoe leather." Mr. Rowen was born in Brooklyn, played end at Long Island University and later earned a doctorate in physical education at Columbia. After the war, he played professionally with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the old All-America Football Conference. He coached at Defiance College in Ohio before becoming an assistant under the highly successful Joe Verducci at S.F. State in 1954. Alumni and friends installed a statue of Mr. Rowen in front of the S.F. State gym in 2011. He was scheduled to be inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame at a dinner in San Francisco on Jan. 27. He and his wife, Selma, would have celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary on Jan.20.Beside his wife, he is survived by two sons, Bruce of Chico,former vice provost of Chico State, and Keith of Vacaville, an ex-Stanford player who coached for several NFL teams;a daughter, Elise Debord of Chico, and eight grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.