Angelo Gasca, a one-of-a-kind high school football coach who grew up using football to escape from gangs and became a beloved special education teacher, mentor and coach for 36 years at Venice High, died Monday night while watching a Lakers game on television, according to longtime friend, Steve Clarkson. Gasca was 65.
The 1978 Venice graduate never left his neighborhood and met his wife, Elda, in high school. Gasca won his first and only City Section Division I championship in 2021. He was known for his innovative passing schemes and producing numerous top City Section quarterbacks, led by former NFL player J.P. Losman. He was such a fixture at Venice that coaching sons of former players became the norm. He loved the concept of “neighborhood team.”
In his 26 seasons as head coach at his alma mater, Gasca built the program into a perennial City contender. His teams won 43 consecutive league games from 2005 to 2014.
“I’ve known Angelo since I was in high school,” said Palisades coach Dylen Smith, whose team won a thriller at Venice, 56-54, in October on its way to the Western League title. “I played against him at Santa Monica High and got to know him better when I played at SMC when he worked there, then of course coaching against him at Pali.
“He was to me a brilliant football coach. I learned a lot from him as an offensive coach and took a few things that I saw him do and used it myself. Outside of football, Angelo was a great human being. He was always genuine, nice and helpful. Even being at a rival school he was always willing to help in any way. He will be missed!”
Perhaps no one in the coaching community knew Gasca better than Ron Price, who was the coach at Crenshaw when Gasca was Venice’s quarterback in 1977. The two coached together for more than 20 seasons at Santa Monica College and Venice. Price, 89, retired in 2023 after 60 years on the gridiron.
“Angelo was a 175-pound quarterback on a good team and I remember playing them when he was a senior,” said Price, who got a call at midnight and was shocked by the news. “We had a pretty good team but they handled us big time that day. Angelo was a very astute guy. He spent some time working in the Midwest and East learning the college style, he understood the passing game more than most and he brought that to Venice. He was a heck of a friend and a damn good coach.”
Gasca’s most important contribution was training, supporting and preparing players to become teachers and coaches. Most of his staff at Venice has been made up of former players. He’d help them stick with the difficult task of earning a teaching credential and find jobs for them.
He was most proud of former running back Byron Ellis, who became an orthopedic surgeon, and receiver Brycen Tremayne, who walked on at Stanford, went undrafted and made the Carolina Panthers.
Last month, Gasca was asked if he ever learned anything from a player and he told the story of having a coaches meeting and one of his former players reminded him how he wanted to quit football but Gasca wouldn’t let him.
“I’m not accepting your resignation today,” Gasca told him. “You need to go home and think about it.”
Said Gasca: “He went home and thought about it and stayed on the team and was the starting center. He taught me the best thing we can teach kids is: Come to school and you never know what connections you’ll make at the school you grew up at. He taught me there’s more to coaching than winning games and scoring touchdowns. In our lives as teachers and coaches, we do learn from players. When we stop learning, it’s time to stop coaching.”
Even though there were rumors last season of Gasca retiring, he insisted he was coming back because he loved teaching and coaching and believed that sports competition can change someone’s life for the better.
“My parents didn’t attend high school,” he said. “When you play, you get a little taste of success and want to play harder and people come into your life and help you. It’s just as easy to do well as it is to do bad. Sometimes when your friends zig right, you have to zig left. The life lessons we learn together is what it’s about.”
In addition to his wife Elda, Gasca is survived by his daughter Alyssa, also a Venice graduate.