Stockton, Calif. - Pacific
Athletics honored distinguished alumni Bob Gaughran ('57), Luci
Lagrimas ('86) and Mark Nordquist ('68) at the Amos Alonzo Stagg
Award of Honor Luncheon on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014 at Grace Covell
Hall on the Pacific campus.
The Amos Alonzo Stagg
Award of Merit was established in 1981 by former Graduate Manager
of Athletics Bob Breeden, Pacific Alumni Director Kara Brewer, and
Director of Athletics Elkin Isaac. The award recognizes
alumni who participated in athletics at Pacific and achieved
distinction in their professional lives through the notable
examples of integrity, dedication, idealism, and team spirit that
Mr. Stagg personified and to which Pacific is dedicated.
Bob Gaughran ‘57
Bob Gaughran was born and raised in San Francisco, before
moving to Redwood City where he attended Sequoia High School and
had a Hall of Fame career in both swimming and water polo.
After leading Stockton College to Northern California
championships in swimming and water polo, Bob was awarded a
swimming/water polo scholarship to University of the Pacific, where
he proceeded to break all game, season and career water polo
scoring records. His Pacific career total of 340 goals
remains the school record. Bob was named to the Nor Cal Water
Polo All-Star Team 3 years, named MVP swimmer 3 times and was twice
named team captain. He was the first aquatic athlete inducted
into the Pacific Athletics Hall of Fame (1992).
After graduation from Pacific, Bob was hired to teach Physical
Education and coach swimming and water polo at Menlo-Atherton High
School (1958-65); winning 18 swimming and water polo crowns,
producing 24 swimming All-Americans and 8 water polo All-Americans,
and winning 2 CIF swimming and 2 CIF water polo
championships. His swimmers set 8 National Interscholastic
Swimming Records and were named by UPI as the 1965 National High
School Swimming Team Champions. Two of his high school
swimmers went on to win Olympic medals; one while still in high
school. He is a member of the Menlo-Atherton High School Hall
of Fame.
Bob moved to Santa Ana College (1965-96) as a PE professor and
aquatics coach. As a coach, he won numerous water polo
championships, highlighted by two Southern California Team Titles
and having 28 of his players named to the Community College
All-American Water Polo Team. One of his players was selected
to two USA Olympic Water Polo Teams. Bob was twice named
Southern California Coach of the Year, and was selected as a
charter member of the California Community College Water Polo
Coaches Association Hall of Fame (1992). In 1971, he coached
the first USA National Water Polo Team into the USSR. He
served as the Athletic Director for Santa Ana College from 1967 to
1974. In 1969, he co-authored The Technique of Water Polo,
one of the sports best-selling books and winner of the Athlon
Prize. Bob was elected to the Santa Ana College Athletic Hall
of Fame in 2013.
In addition to his coaching, Bob coordinated water safety
instruction classes for the American Red Cross at Santa Ana College
for 25 years. He served as the Venue Director at the 1984
Olympic Games and as Venue Director at the 1983 FINA World
Championships. He was Chairman of USA Olympic Water Polo,
Chairman of the National and International AAU Water Polo
Committee, and Director of the Hawaiian Aquatic Forum for
Swimming/Water Polo in Honolulu, Hawaii. He also served 12
years on the Pacific Alumni Association Board of Directors
(1987-98).
For 43 years (1970 to 2012), Bob founded and produced the National
Coaches Clinics, which brought together America’s finest
coaches to address coaches at educational seminars. Clinics
were conducted for the sports of Football, Baseball, Basketball,
Fitness/Nutrition, Lacrosse, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Track
& Field, Volleyball and Water Polo. The clinics, which
were held in various cities in northern California, southern
California, Chicago, Seattle and Philadelphia, attracted in excess
of 50,000 coaches.
Bob and his wife Barbara, Pacific class of 1960, live in Newport
Beach, CA. They have two children and two grandchildren.
Luci Lagrimas, ‘86
Luci Lagrimas’s field hockey career began in 1978 at Kearny High School in San Diego, CA, where
she earned Most Valuable Player, All-Conference, All-CIF and Player
of the Year honors as a high schooler. During her college career at University of the
Pacific, while earning her Electrical
Engineering degree, Luci was named Pacific’s Most Valuable Player (1981-84), NorPac All-Conference (1981-84), NorPac Conference Player of the Year (1984), and NCAA Division
I All-American (1982-84). She represented the
USA as a member of the Under-21 National
Team in 1983-84 and the Senior Women’s National Team in
1985-86.
Luci’s passion for the sport of field
hockey is alive and well to this day. In her first stint in a
non-playing role, Luci worked as an Assistant Coach at University
of the Pacific from 1985-90, and then as an Assistant Coach at UC
Berkeley from 1997-98. While
nurturing her career as a high tech professional, Luci served as an
Administrative Director and Coach in the USA Olympic Development
Program for Field Hockey from 1991 to 2003. As the
Administrative Director for California, Luci was responsible for
the talent identification and development of future Olympians aged
13-18 years. Starting in 1999, Luci decided to try her hand at
umpiring. Since then, she has been
actively involved at all levels, umpiring high school, adult club,
and college level field hockey games, serving as an administrator
and technical official at various Olympic development events and
international field hockey matches, and mentoring up-and-coming
umpires. A few of Luci’s major
accomplishments as an umpire include working as an NCAA Division I
college umpire since 1999. She has worked nine conference
finals in the last 10 years. Additionally, she has worked the NCAA First and
Second Rounds from 2004-12 and worked the NCAA Final Four from
2004-06 and 2008. She also served as
National Futures Championship Umpiring Director from 2004 to 2008.
Today when not on the
field hockey pitch, Luci works as a Senior Engineering Manager at
Cisco Systems, managing a team of 130 people. She enjoys hiking and traveling the world with
her close friends and family. Luci has hiked Mt. Shasta, Half
Dome, Mt. Whitney, Mt. Fuji, and Mt. Kilimanjaro and is now
planning to conquer Patagonia this March.
Mark Nordquist,
‘68
Mark Nordquist was born in Long
Beach, Calif. and discovered a love of nature early in life,
earning Eagle Scout designation at the young age of 13. Nordquist
attended high school at Reseda High School in the San Fernando
Valley before attending junior college at Pierce College in Los
Angeles.
After transferring to Pacific in time for the 1966 season,
Nordquist played on the Tigers' offensive line for two seasons. He
was one of the top tackles on the West Coast in a time when the
team was competing as an independent. After graduation from Pacific
with a BS in Business Administration in 1968, Mark was drafted in
the fifth round of the 1968 NFL Draft by the Philadephia Eagles,
Nordquist embarked on a nine year career in professional football,
playing in 96 games for the Eagles between 1968-1974 while serving
as offensive line captain for a period. He finished his career with
the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers, playing in a total of 15
games in 1975 and 1976.
After his football playing career, Nordquist went into the world
of entrepreneurship, co-founding DonJoy, today the world's largest
manufacturer of knee braces, in a Carlsbad, Calif. garage in 1978.
The company, now known as DJ Ortho, employs over five thousand
people in more than a dozen facilities throughout the world. In
addition to founding DonJoy, Nordquist also was a successful real
estate builder and developer in the San Diego area, specializing in
ocean view homes.
Today, he is an accomplished sculptor, founding Mark Nordquist
Studio after initially taking up sculpting as a hobby. His pieces
include many inspired by moments in his life and his love of nature
and animals. He also provides private coaching to aspiring youth
and high school linemen in the San Diego area in his spare time.
Mark lives in Carlsbad, Calif. with his wife Joy and their
Labrador.
