Jack Rose

Retired professor dies

The flame of the Long Beach torch went out Monday night when former Cal State Long Beach track coach, Jack Rose, died at the age of 66.

While watching Monday night Football and having dinner with Susan, his wife of 40 years, Rose choked to death on a piece of steak that got lodged in his throat. Long Beach Fire Department paramedics arrived to Rose's Long Beach home at 8:07 p.m., approximately seven minutes after his wife made the call.

They tried to revive him for 21 minutes before he was transported to Long Beach community Medical Center. He was pronounced dead at 9:10 p.m.

Rose was well-known by the community, his colleagues and his students as "Smiling" Jack Rose.

"He was always looking for the bright side of everything. He approached his coaching that way. He approached his teaching that way. He approached his life that way," said CSULB physical education department chairwoman, Dr. Dixie Grimmett.

"I think the thing that was most admirable about Jack was that he always looked for the positive in everything. It didn't make a difference what it was or what the results had been prior or what the results could be," she said.

Born Nov. 16, 1929, in Grand Rapids, Mich., Rose is remembered for his involvement in track and field as well as the Olympics. Regarded by his peers as a historian, Rose gave a lecture at CSULB about the Olympics on May 8, 1996, just before heading off to the Atlanta '96 games.

"He attended nearly all, if not all of the Olympic Games," said Rita Hayes, former student of Rose's in 1977 and later a colleague of his.

Hayes reminisced about times when Rose would come in to his Olympic History class, dressed in a toga. She said he would tell the class about the Olympics and how they originated in Greece. She also said that he would show slides and movies from his experiences at past games and would bring in momentos from those games.

"He had an original Olympic torch," Hayes said.

Rose was a deacon at the United Church of Christ in Los Altos.

He started teaching at CSULB in 1956 and retired from the physical education department in 1992. He was the track coach for the 49ers for 25 years.

"He taught totally off the top of his head," said Bill Hinshaw, former CSULB student of Rose's who took Sports Appreciation 230 with him in 1992 and is also an employee at the CSULB Athletic Department.

"He really knew a lot about history," he said.

While he was the track coach, he introduced the Low Tide Run, a local marathon and officiated track and field events for the Athletic Congress, the national governing body for track and field.

Recently, he worked on plans for a memorial at The Pyramid for CSULB alumni Olympians as well as a similar memorial at the Long Beach Convention Center for Long Beach resident Olympians. He also helped to organize a torch procession down Second Street in Long Beach, for the Atlanta Games, according to Hayes.

Although officially retired from the department since 1992, Rose never really stopped caring about or giving to CSULB, according to colleagues and students. He served as project promoter and organizer of the Emereti Faculty Video Project in 1995 and remained actively involved in the track and field program at the college up until his death.

"He would come into the department all of the time, even after he retired and massage (the team member's) shoulders and offer advice and support," Hinshaw said.

"He was right here every day (on campus) even though he had been retired for a number of years," Grimmett said.

Rose had been instrumental in many of the local youth track events through his involvement in the Hershey's National Track and Field Youth Program, which he directed for 19 years.

"He was very thoughtful. He always had candy kisses or Hershey bars. I'd always know when he'd been here because he would have left a little chocolate kiss here or one of those small Hershey bars," said Grimmett.

Rose was also the director of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame Historical Research Library and the Governor's Council on Fitness and Sports. In his home town of Long Beach, he was the director of the Long Beach Marathon.

Rose is survived by his wife, Susan, and his three sons: Mike, 39, Mark, 3, and Scott, 30, as well as eight grandchildren.

"He was very much devoted to his family, and his three boys," said Dr. Bill Husak, 17-year friend of Rose's and associate athletic director at CSULB.

"He was the most positive person I've ever met and consequently the happiest," Husak said. "He touched a lot of people's lives." There will be a memorial at 10 a.m. Saturday at The Pyramid in honor of "Smiling" Jack Rose.