Los Altos' Dwayne DeSpain finally gets hall pass

Being a part of the LAHS football tradition was a great honor. Winning two CIF championships in 76, 77 with Coach DeSpain were great as well. However as time moves on the lessons learned and applied in life have meant so much more than the trophies and awards now gone.

When I look back on my life there have been so few people who helped lift me from one plateau to the next. Thank goodness these people come along in our lives. Coach was certainly one who lifted.

Learning at a young age the hard work and commitment required to be a winner, and what it means to take pride in your effort has influenced my life in so many ways. There are hundreds of young men who went through the LAHS football program who I am sure would share these same sentiments.

Coach Olsen shared a quote with me my Sr. year by Grantland Rice: "When the one great scorer comes to mark against your name, he marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game". Looking back I would expect such a quote from a program with few winning seasons; but the fact that it came from a program with a huge tradition in winning speaks volumes about the character of Coach DeSpain and his staff. So more than winning football games, Coach DeSpain has left a legacy that is measured in the lives of the young men he has influenced.

Men like Coach Despain will live in the Hall of Fame of building champions for life.

Thank you Coach and congratulations!

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It was great to see Dwayne get hid long over due Hall induction. Lou,Steve, and Greg are fine coaches and good men but would have to coach another twenty years to accomplish what Despain did. With new leagues it will be IMPOSABLE!!!!

Conq 76,
And that my friend is what makes him a great coach and why he is in the HOF . My only question is why it took so long?????????

Granted, however, it seems to me a high school program running offensive schemes that would be referred to as "genius" in 10 years, is at the very least notable.

There was a quote from Despain who was approached by a coach after he, Despain, had been giving a seminar on passing schemes. The coach said, "My kids will never understand this stuff.", to which Despain replied, "Well, mine can."

This was his real gift, not assuming his kids couldn't grasp what was, at the time, rather revolutionary stuff, at least at the high school level. He demanded that they set aside their doubts and work hard to master what he and his staff was teaching. In my opinion, too many teachers/coaches just assume the kids can't digest what may be considered to difficult and instead "dumb things down".

I don't mean to imply that Despain "invented" the West Coast Offense, but rather recognized its potential and opted to do what very few high school coaches would have dared to do at the time.

Conq 76,
Not to take anything away from Coach DeSpain as he truely was LA Football for many years and left the program in great shape when he left but that west coast offense was in play long before the 49ers of Walsh. He and Paul Brown implimented it back whe the Bengals first entered the old AFL. It has been around a long time and thru all his years of coaching Walsh perfected it and finally when he was the head coach of the 49ers he put it into full swing.

Conq '76 said:
It was my great honor and privilege to attend LA from 1972-76 and I was being brought to Conqueror games all through Junior High as well. I never played for Coach Despain as my brothers did however, I have always felt his professionalism on campus was an example to all students. He always saw to it that his players conducted themselves with a "little class" on campus and saved their aggression for the field.

I don't think he gets enough credit for being an innovator. Many of his offensive schemes would be heralded as "genius" a decade or so later when Bill Walsh introduced what was called the "West Coast" offense to the NFL. Los Altos' offense under Despain featured many of the complicated blocking and passing schemes Walsh used with Montana and company.

Despain's utilization of men in motion, short slant passes and passes to trailing backs, forced oppossing defenses to try and cover a multitude of potential weapons. He and his staff, including legendary Coach Lyle Olsen, always believed they could teach, and that their kids could learn, what was, at the time, some very sophisticated concepts and strategies.

He ran a "Pro-Set" but it was superbly balanced with the likes of Rob Hertel, (USC QB), Dennis Sproul, (Arizona State) and Randy Hertel, (Rice), distributing the ball to backs like Binky Benton, Mike Hill, Danny Tinejero and Matt Aney while at the same time throwing the ball down the field to some tough, talented receivers.

Congratulations Coach Despain! Your induction is certainly deserved!