Mike Pecarovich

Pecarovich was the son of Croatian immigrants (his father Nikola was a Dalmatian mariner) born in Spokane, Washington,[1] Pecarovich attended Santa Clara University, where he played on the football team from 1919 to 1921 as a guard and an end.[2][3] Pecarovich then transferred to Gonzaga University back home in Spokane, where he played football as a quarterback under head coach Gus Dorais.[4] He graduated in 1922,[5] and was an assistant under Dorais.[6] In 1924, Pecarovich earned a law degree and passed the bar exam.[5][7]

After law school, Pecarovich coached the Gonzaga High School football team for two years,[5] then led the Los Angeles Angels football team in the Pacific Coast Professional League,[6] until 1928.[5] That year, Pecarovich took over as head football coach at Loyola,[8] where he installed the Knute Rockne system.[9] The Lions amassed a 5–3 record in 1928.[8] In 1929 and 1930, he coached Cathedral High School in Los Angeles.[10][11]

Pecarovich returned to his alma mater Gonzaga in 1931 to succeed Ray Flaherty as head coach.[3][12][13][14] While there, Pecarovich appointed Bing Crosby, a friend and former classmate, as an assistant coach,[15] and made appearances in several movies alongside Crosby.[7] He remained at Gonzaga through 1938 and compiled a 31–35–5 (.472) record in eight seasons.[8]

In 1939, Pecarovich returned to coach Loyola, which gave him a three-year contract; the Gonzaga administration agreed to release him from the two years remaining on his contract.[5][16][17] His second stint with Loyola was not successful, his team earning a 2–5–1 record, and he was replaced by Marty Brill.[3] He applied for the head coaching position at the University of Idaho in Moscow in 1941, but was not hired despite being considered a strong candidate.[3]

Pecarovich coached the San Francisco Clippers in 1944 in the short-lived American Football League of the Pacific Coast.[18] He led the franchise to a second-place finish with a 7–3 record in the eight-team league's only season.[19] He later served as an assistant coach under Flaherty with the New York Yankees professional football team,[20] then taught at St. Anthony High School in Long Beach for ten years in the 1950s.[20]

On April 27, 1960, the University of San Diego announced it had signed Pecarovich to a two-year contract as its head football coach.[20] He led the Toreros to a 6–13–1 (.325) record over two seasons.[8] However, after the 1961 season, the school disbanded its football program.[21]

Pecarovich earned a reputation as a skilled after-dinner speaker,[22] and provided many lectures in his later life.[23] He also used his oration skills during halftime pep talks, and people who knew both men compared him to Knute Rockne, who had been a famed motivator as the Notre Dame coach.[22] Pecarovich died of a heart attack on March 22, 1965, in his home in Rolling Hills, California,[24] and was buried at All Souls Cemetery in Long Beach.

He was the namesake for Pecarovich Field at Gonzaga, a $25,000 baseball venue which opened in 1967;[25][26][27] it was renamed August/ART Stadium in 1996 and razed in 2003 to construct the McCarthey Center.[28] The Gonzaga Athletic Hall of Fame inducted Pecarovich in its class of 1991.[29]

• List of college football head coaches with non-consecutive tenure

• Mike Pecarovich at Find a Grave