Remembering Ray

by Mike Calosso, Gary Quattrin and Judy Quattrin

Ray Clemons coached football at Sacramento State for 15 years and later was the athletic director and Alumni Association executive director. Clemons was also the father of nine and husband of Rosemary. He died in 2005. The football team lounge in the new Broad Athletic Facility will be named the Coach Ray Clemons Football Team Lounge in the Broad Athletic Facility through a gift from Gary and Judy Quattrin.

Gary Quattrin: The best thing I can say is everyone wanted to be like Ray Clemons. I think that’s why a lot of the athletes who played for him went into education and coaching. He was a beautiful role model. He had an ability to make people think they were better than they were as an athlete.

Mike Calosso: He could be stern but he had a heart bigger than gold. He was honest but showed everyone respect. He never belittled anyone. Physical mistakes he could tolerate, but if you made a mental mistake, you came out of the game and you had better get it straightened out.
Much of what Ray instilled in me I still use today. One of his favorite expressions was “If you can discipline yourself, you can be successful. If you can’t discipline yourself, you can’t.” It’s true on the football field as well as in life.

Gary Quattrin: What I liked about him, and the players who played for him liked, is he treated starters and the ones who weren’t starting the same. We still talk about how he was able to get us to do things we didn’t want to do. We ended up up doing them and enjoying it. You didn’t want to let him down and you worked extra hard not to let him down.

Calosso: Ray Clemons was more of a father figure than a coach. He took everyone in under his wing and looked out for them. If football players couldn’t afford tuition he gave them a place they could stay—the “Zot House.” He regularly invited people to his home. If a player couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, he’d say “Come join us.”

Gary Quattrin: He surrounded himself with good coaches and good people. That’s the sign of a good leader. He was a disciplinarian and he was a tough coach but was the kind of coach you could talk to.

Judy Quattrin: We both met Coach Clemons when we were students, 18 or 19 years old. As an 18-year-old, talking to a coach is really intimidating but he was very approachable. I felt he was very honest and had the students’ wellbeing at heart.

Ray was an advocate for all students. He understood the importance of student activities in providing a healthy balance between academic and student life and many outstanding student life programs were developed with his guidance such as the carriage as a perpetual trophy for the Sac State-UC Davis football rivalry. Many outstanding student life programs were developed with Coach Clemons’ guidance. And Ray was a founding member of the Aquatic Center where he originally envisioned races for student organizations and athletic teams during Homecoming Week activities.

Gary Quattrin: When I first met him he wanted me to call him “Ray.” I never did. I always called him Coach, even when I got older. For me he was a father figure. He was my coach and when I coached with him he was my mentor, and then he was a friend—and that was probably the most important part of our relationship.

Calosso: When Coach Clemons recruited me I was in the military going through a three-month boot camp. No one could get off the base until it was completed. Somehow Ray b.s.-ed his way on there, saying he was a retired Marine or retired Navy. When I got called to the office I accidentally knocked the bulletin board off the wall. I had to do 50 pushups. I thought, “I’m gonna kill this guy. He got me in trouble.” So I asked, “Who the hell are you?” and he said “I’m Ray Clemons from Sacramento State and I want you to play football for me.” A lot of schools from all over the country were trying to recruit me, but he was the only one who came to boot camp.

Gary Quattrin: He impacted a lot of people’s lives. He gave a lot of people a start on their careers. He cared about students and did a lot for them after they graduated. It was important for him to get that person placed in a good position.

All the players respected him. A lot of the older players today, from our era are still together and I think it is because of the relationships that were established by Ray and his staff. We were a family and that extended to the wives and girlfriends.

I think Monsignor Cavanaugh, who did Ray’s funeral, said it best, “He was able to communicate with people at all levels.” He could deal with all kinds of people, whether it was talking to the person working on the field or talking to the president of the school. He had the ability to transcend everything.

Judy Quattrin: He and (his wife) Rosemary were a team. Ray and Rosemary’s philosophy was to include families in every aspect. I watched the way Rosemary conducted herself. She was really good role model for young women.

Gary Quattrin: He linked the community with the university. He promoted community service with students, the idea of giving back. He ran a summer camp for about 80 to 120 children, with horses, etc. It was amazing—it was not only a day camp but a resident camp where kids stayed overnight. The last two weeks of day camp he invited kids from St. Patrick’s Children’s Home.

For two years during the summer camps I lived with him. He has four to six of his athletes working as counselors plus his sons. I got to know him in a different context. But he wasn’t really different. He didn’t make that distinction. A lot of coaches, once they’re in the coaching sector, they put things on a formal basis, make it bigger than it is. And he never did that. His door was always open.

Judy Quattrin: That’s why the team room is a perfect room to have named after him.

Gary Quattrin: For the current athletes, the team room will be a place to enjoy teammates and build some tradition—just like the people at Notre Dame know Knute Rockne. That’s where Judy and I got the idea. I heard from a lot of former players and they all said the same thing: every person should experience Ray Clemons.

Judy Quattrin: He made everyone who came into contact with him better.
Calosso: I wish I could go through it again. Those were the most wonderful years of my life.