[img]1719|exact||no_popup[/img]
Coach Sanchez. Photo by George Laase.
Dave Sanchez, one of Culver City High School’s most popular coaches and teachers, died today at the noon hour, 12:14, 12 months almost to the day after being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer.
On Saturday, there will be a viewing at Holy Cross Cemetery from 1 to 3 o’clock, with the funeral beginning shortly after 3. Afterward, around 4 o’clock, there will be a reception in the cafeteria at Culver High.
Upbeat and outgoing, friends this afternoon were recalling how irrepressibly sunny he had remained since everything changed last February.
Oh, they said, he had a marvelous time last August as the Grand Marshal of Fiesta La Ballona, the crowning summer celebration for half a century in his adopted hometown where he had lived for 25 years.
At 58 years old, Mr. Sanchez was in the prime of his professional and personal lives when the thunder struck.
He did not disappear from public view once the chemo treatments began. Mr. Sanchez was quite visible around the community.
As recently as several weeks ago, he sat for an interview with Samantha Kim, features editor of the Culver High student newspaper, the Centaurian.
This was fitting because he spent the last 21 years of his life on campus.
“Upon first meeting Dave Sanchez,” Ms. Kim wrote, “the thing that catches the eye is the warmth of his smile as he reaches out to shake your hand.
“Sitting in a worn armchair, the second thing you notice is the unnatural pallor to his skin. Although this image is far different from the Sanchez CCHS saw a year ago, he has not changed much in spirit.”
Mr. Sanchez told Ms. Kim that it had been a “rough” year, that he had lost a great deal of weight and often was sleepy. But his spirit was unmarred. “Even though it is such a horrible thing to happen,” he said, “it has made me a better person.”
During his illness, the importance of family, love, God, faith and community became even more emphatic in the front row of his daily life. “It makes me really appreciate being alive,” he said.
He was that old-fashioned combination of teacher and coach – and here is the rare part – who was achingly, deeply in love with both dimensions of the school day, academics and athletics.
An acknowledged math nerd, he taught AP calculus in addition to his various coaching duties – boys soccer, cross country and he was a distance coach for the track team.
Growing up, starting in Monterey, in Northern California, the Sanchez family had to be mobile. His father was a career Army man. He once counted up 17 addresses where he had lived during a 21-year period.
As a boy, Mr. Sanchez wanted to be a baseball player, a basketball player, a football player – but his adult life turned him toward a career in I.T. before he came to Culver High in the early ‘90s where his tenure paralleled Mr. Chabola’s time there.
“Dave loved kids and he loved people,” said his friend Mr. Chabola, the retired athletic director who left the classroom at this time last year just as Mr. Sanchez’s health was forcing his premature retirement.
“He was a great teacher, whether on the field or in the classroom. He pushed his kids, but when they came out, they knew math and they knew how to play whatever sport he was teaching at the moment.”
Mr. Chabola said that Mr. Sanchez was strongly responsible for giving athletics a high profile at Culver City Middle School before moving next door to the high school.
Married to Cheryl, widely known as Chevy, they had five children, Kety, Kurt, Nikko, Nate and Aaron.
One tender memory of his friend and colleague should not go unreported, Mr. Chabola said:
Like nearly everyone who knows her, Mr. Sanchez always referred to his wife by her nickname, Chevy.
But along with much else, that seemingly lighthearted reference was put away for keeps last February after his diagnosis.
No more would she be Chevy to him.
Out of deep respect and affection, from now on, he said, “she will be known as Cheryl.”
Why?
“This is a new part of my life,” he said, and that is a poignant memory to be treasured.
