LAKE COUNTY >> Longtime Lower Lake High School teacher, varsity football coach and athletic director Gordon Sadler died on Monday of an aneurysm at the age of 77, according to family members.
Sadler was visiting relatives in Iowa at the time of his death.
Loved in the Lower Lake community by several generations of students and athletes, Sadler also served as a mentor for coaches who followed him to Lower Lake, many of whom are still there now. He inspired coaches in other parts of the county as well, including a rookie coach back in 1985 at Middletown High School.
“I’ve been here for 31 years now but that guy was my mentor,” Middletown coach Bill Foltmer said of the friendly Sadler, who took Foltmer under his wing from the start.
“If I had a question, he would take the time to answer it. If I had a problem, I would go to him and I always felt better after talking to him.”
Although Sadler, a fixture at Lower Lake since the early 1960s, stopped coaching football at Lower Lake following the 1995 season, he really never stopped coaching. He served as Middletown’s offensive coordinator in 1997, the year the Mustangs won the first of their three North Coast Section championships.
“He was subbing at Middletown and we were talking,” Foltmer said. “We made him offensive coordinator and we split the offense. I coached the I-formation elements while Gordon meshed in the Delaware Wing-T elements. We had the best of each other’s programs working together. He called all the plays that year (1997).”
After the 1998 season, Sadler moved over to Mendocino College as an assistant coach, but he returned to Middletown as offensive coordinator in 2001, the year the Mustangs won their third sectional crown.
“He was such a friendly guy and he loved to talk, and he loved to talk football all the time,” Foltmer said. “I”ll miss his friendship and his sense of humor.”
As an example, Foltmer said that during the 1998 season, the last time the Mustangs failed to post a winning overall record, he told Sadler he was unhappy with his team’s play.
“He turned to me and said, ‘Billy, you can’t take a mule to the Kentucky Derby and win.’”
Mike Hansen, a defensive coordinator for the better part of 10 seasons as a member of Sadler’s coaching staff beginning in the early 1980s, said he last visited Sadler and his wife Barbara in July at their Angels Camp home.
“Beyond the coaching, he was just a great man,” Hansen said. “He always wanted to help people.”
As a head coach, Sadler didn’t micro-manage his other coaches.
“We had a pretty good staff and he trusted us. He let us do our jobs,” Hansen said. “It was a great environment to coach in. And he treated kids so well.”
As an Xs and Os coach, Hansen said Sadler had few peers.
“I loved it when he got the running game rolling. He knew where the play was going to be, where the hole was going to be … he had great vision,” Hansen said.
Sadler wasn’t always blessed with abundant talent at Lower Lake, but he made the most of whatever he had, according to Hansen. The proof was a 10-year run of winning teams (1984-1993).
“I think his best coaching job may have been in 1987. We started 0-4 and we finished 5-4. He just kept coaching and we kept getting better. He didn’t quit,” Hansen said.
Sadler, who Lower Lake’s field is named after, posted a 112-89-11 record at Lower Lake, including a section championship in 1988 when Lower Lake beat Clear Lake 9-3 in sudden-death overtime at Ukiah High School.
No details about services were available Monday evening.
