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- Year:
- 1948-1984
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- Sports Played:
- Football Head Coach
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- Induction Year:
- 1994
Bio
It’s misleading to refer to Ray Rosso as just the college’s first football coach, since in his 36 years at Orange Coast he also coached golf, track and field, cross country, sailing, tennis and even swimming. But as one of two original athletic department faculty members, he’s chiefly remembered as the original football coach at OCC.
A native of Turin, Italy and graduate of UC Berkeley, he joined the Naval Air Corps when the United States became involved in World War II, and he served as a fighter pilot until 1945. Involved in the family recreation business in South Lake Tahoe after the war, he became head football coach at Chaffey College in 1946, and in his second season, Ray led the Panthers to the Junior Rose Bowl championship with a 39–26 win over Cameron Agricultural College of Oklahoma before a crowd of 55,000.
The next year, the lure of living near the ocean brought Ray from Alta Loma to OCC, which was then the site of the deactivated Santa Ana Army Air Base and surrounded by little more than bean fields and sage brush. Recruiting top players to such a desolate location wasn’t easy, but in his initial season, 1948, Ray led the Pirates to wins in their first two games, 14–6 over Riverside and 12–7 over Palomar. OCC was 3–5–1 that year and in 1949, the Bucs went 8–2 and shut out five opponents while giving up just 58 points all season. Rosso brought OCC its first Eastern Conference title in 1951 as Coast went undefeated in six EC contests, 7–3 overall.
In all, he coached eight seasons on the gridiron, turning to other coaching assignments in 1955, and recorded a 37–38–3 lifetime mark at OCC. Ray, now 78, retired from active coaching in 1984, devoting his time to his wife, Jean, their three homes (located in Idaho, Palm Springs and Newport Beach) and extensive traveling, both in the United States and around the world.
