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Beteta, who had been all for the controversial push to go coed, taught in the social science and modern languages departments, coached football and baseball at all levels and was a constant presence in the hallways, offering high-fives. He regularly spent 12 hours a day on campus, cutting back only\u00a0 to pursue his master\u2019s degree in educational leadership from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He would study online late into the night until his illness required him to take a leave of absence from teaching in March 2025. But he finished his master\u2019s, proudly walking in cap and gown at the ceremony in Los Angeles on May 18, 2025, one day after the birthday of his sister. She was in the audience, along with Beteta\u2019s\u00a0 wife and his mother, Aura Lila Beteta, a Nicaraguan immigrant who is a human rights advocate in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe had just finished a round of chemotherapy three weeks before his graduation,\u201d said Seymour, a Mercy graduate who is an escrow officer in El Dorado Hills. \u201cThat\u2019s why I call him a true Crusader. He was always a fighter. Whatever he set out to do, he did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edgar Emilio Beteta Jr. was born Dec. 23, 1966, at UCSF and grew up in a rental house in Bernal Heights. Both his parents were immigrants and worked full time. His father, Edgar Sr., worked a series of jobs and ended up a P.E. teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District. His mother was an administrator at San Francisco State University and later was appointed Nicaragua\u2019s Consul General in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
Edgar, called Emilito by his family and Eddie by his friends, attended Fairmount Elementary and St. Anthony parochial school. At age 9, he was on the sidewalk in front of the family\u2019s\u00a0 house on Coso Street when he witnessed his sister getting hit by a car that had lost its brakes and rolled backward down the hill. She was stuck underneath it and her little brother ran to get help, which she said \u201csaved my life because nobody else was around.\u201d Her brother remained protective of her after that incident, which put her in the hospital for a month, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After graduating from St. Anthony, he attended Riordan, the boys high school run by the Brothers of Mary in the Ingleside district across from City College of San Francisco. Beteta, who was nicknamed Gumby on account of his hair sticking up like the rubber toy figure, went out for the freshman baseball team.<\/p>\n
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Edgar Beteta’s baseball photo from the Archbishop Riordan yearbook, 1985.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Riordan High School<\/p>\n
He was a second baseman and right-handed pitcher, both a starter and reliever with a wicked curveball that he was willing to teach to his teammates even if they ended up taking innings away from him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI knew he was going to be a coach,\u2019\u2019 said Nick Castora, a centerfielder with Beteta on the JV and varsity teams, which practiced and played most of its home games on an infield littered with\u00a0 broken glass and an outfield pocked with gopher holes at Crocker Amazon Playground. Beteta would cram five players and their gear into his 1972 Volkswagen Beetle for the commute to Crocker Amazon and the school\u2019s other field, Balboa Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always there as a guide,\u201d said Castora. \u201cHe loved to play, but he had something in him that just loved helping people out.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Riordan has always offered to teach anyone a musical\u00a0 instrument, and as a sophomore Beteta took up the alto sax with his buddy Randy Bickel. They stuck with it side by side for three years, playing in the\u00a0 pep band in yellow windbreakers with the Riordan crest to fight the night chill during rivalry football games against Sacred Heart, at the old Kezar Stadium, and basketball games against Sacred Heart or St. Ignatius in Kezar Pavilion.<\/p>\n
During sophomore year, Beteta started noticing that his fingers were sore when he came home from baseball practice. The symptom led to a diagnosis of\u00a0 lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes widespread inflammation. His sister could see the swelling in his face in class pictures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe may have missed classes but he never complained,\u201d said his sister. \u201cHe was very dignified and courageous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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At the same time, he was navigating his parents\u2019 breakup. They divorced his\u00a0 senior year, and his father moved to Nicaragua\u00a0\u2014 one reason he chose to live at home while attending UC Berkeley, commuting in his VW Beetle.\u00a0 His progressive lupus caused him to take extensive time off for chemotherapy treatments and infusions. He eventually transferred\u00a0 to San Francisco State, where he earned a\u00a0 bachelor\u2019s degree in sociology in 1994.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always very smart,\u201d his sister said. \u201cI remember watching \u2018Jeopardy! \u2019 with him, and he knew all the answers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to be a teacher,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n
So he became one, earning his teaching credential from Notre Dame de Namur in Belmont, and starting out as a substitute in the San Bruno Park School District. He then was hired full time to teach seventh grade at Our Lady of Mercy in Daly City. When he was hired at Riordan, about 20 of his former Our Lady of Mercy students came with him, helping form the first coed class.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved how outgoing and kind he was,\u201d said Adrieana Diokno, who had Beteta as a teacher for two years at Our Lady of Mercy followed by two years at Riordan. \u201cHe was like a friend to all of his students and he made class really fun and engaging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Beteta\u2019s lupus was in remission when he met Stephanie Santa Maria in the mid-1990s. They\u2019d known each other from San Francisco\u2019s\u00a0 SoMa nightclub circuit\u00a0\u2014 Holy Cow, DNA Lounge, Release and so on\u00a0\u2014 and when they ran into each other at TGI Friday in San Bruno, they figured they were destined to date. They were married in 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One year later, Beteta suffered kidney failure that required dialysis. With help from family, the Betetas bought a townhouse in the Serra Highlands neighborhood of Daly City. He leaned on that same support again in 2007 when he needed a kidney transplant\u00a0\u2014 his cousin was his donor. During his two-year recovery, a steady rotation of eight or 10 high school pals came to visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanny, Freddy, Rudy, Norm, Marvin, Russ, Ernesto, Nick,\u201d said Bickel, ticking off the names. The group became so tight that they all referred to any of their mothers as \u201cMom.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The transplant bought Beteta nearly 20 years of vitality, said his wife, noting that he felt so good that he became active in the Transplant Games sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation. As part of the Northern California team, he traveled to Pittsburgh and Madison, Wis., to play in the basketball tournament and run the mile relay. The athletes exchanged pins like Olympians\u00a0\u2014\u00a0his collection remains in the closet next to his purple-and-gold necktie.<\/p>\n
![\"Ed]()
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Ed Beteta’s varsity letter jacket from 1985.<\/p>\n
courtesy of Amelia Beteta Seymour<\/p>\n
He\u2019d wear that tie to school and even pull out his old letter jacket to boost morale for a particularly crucial game against St. Ignatius or Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep. He had more Riordan hats than there were school days to wear them all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring spirit week for the kids, you would always see him dress up and participate to support the students,\u201d said Viggen Rassam, a member of the class of \u201887 who has been on the faculty for 32 years.\u00a0 \u201cWhen Riordan would lose, it hit him badly. That was a passion of his.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because he was immunocompromised, Beteta often wore an N-95 mask long after the COVID-19 mandate was lifted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But as his illness progressed, he had to go out on medical leave. He promised his students he\u2019d\u00a0 be back but several rounds of chemotherapy took a toll\u00a0 and he was hospitalized after a fall. On Feb. 17, his old gang of the Riordan boys were summoned by Amelia and they all drove in from Antioch, Shingle Springs, Concord, Pleasant Hill and Rohnert Park. beyond. Six of them crowded into one hospital room on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18 and stayed with him until the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe passed in front of all of us, and we notified the nurse,\u201d said Bickel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After his death, Rassam was asked by administrators to make a video tribute to him. He reached out to the alumni community and got enough video testimonials to form a 45-minute reel. He edited that down to a 15-minute tribute posted on the Crusader Nation YouTube channel and shown during home room at Archbishop Riordan on Feb. 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Beteta was the goodness in this world,\u201d said one student in his on-camera testimony.<\/p>\n
The funeral was at Our Lady of Mercy in Daly City. After the reception, at Dominic\u2019s, the Riordan shrine was moved to Beteta\u2019s sister\u2019s house in El Dorado Hills, where it remains on display in her dining room, complete with a Gumby figurine. She decorated it for Easter and is already planning for the next holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my way of celebrating holidays with my brother even though he\u2019s not around,\u201d she said. \u201cHe saved my life and was the sweetest little brother you could ever have.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edgar Beteta in 2023. A popular coach and teacher at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,7,15,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-259893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-education","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}