PG Pride, PO Box 419, Pacific Grove CA 93950.

Please include a note indicating "Richard Chamberlin Memorial Scholarship." The Chamberlin Scholarship will be awarded each year to an outstanding Pacific Grove High School senior at the school's annual senior awards night.

Coach Richard Chamberlin devoted his life to the students of Pacific Grove. During 35 years as a PG High School biology teacher and 48 years as a coach of cross-country, track and wrestling, he taught, mentored, encouraged and befriended thousands of the city's youth. He is fondly remembered and appreciated for his deep commitment to his students and for his love of athletics that made him one of the most respected and honored coaches in Pacific Grove's history.

Richard coached ten League Championship teams and two Central Coast Section Championships, and was named a Central Coast Section Honor Coach for Cross Country. He was once voted one of the top 25 Monterey County coaches of the past 100 years. In 2005, the Mission Trail Athletic League named its annual League Relays meet "The Richard Chamberlin Invitational." Coach Chamberlin served as its meet director for the annual Rotary Invitational Track and Field meet, which brought high school athletes from all over northern California to compete at Breaker Stadium. His 1996 cross-country team installed a bench with a nameplate in his honor at the top of Huckleberry Hill, the summit of the cross-country training course.

His love for athletics and commitment to students is unmatched. His student/athletes will not only remember the high quality coaching they received from Coach Chamberlin but will also remember the season ending "montage parties". When the team members would come to his house to make a montage of the season pictures and bake chocolate chip cookies. Richard complained of the "mess those kids made of my kitchen", but it was always said with a wry smile and touch of pride.

A fifth-generation American, Richard was born in Los Angeles, graduated from UC Santa Barbara and served in the U.S. Army. He traveled the globe during summer vacations, most recently to China and Australia in 2005. His journeys took him to world-class athletic events like the Athens Olympics, to exceptional opera performances, and at times to college campuses where he proudly supported his former athletes who went on to compete after high school. Richard inspired students to make the sacrifices that let to success. "Winning cam be defined in multitudinous ways," he counseled. "Find yours!"

Coach Chamberlin lived his life with enthusiasm, passion and humor. He found his path when he came to Pacific Grove in 1958 and he followed it for almost a half century. It came to an end just steps away from the high school he honored, the students he loved. Coach Chamberlin passed away after being struck by a car while walking home from a Wrestling Tournament. Some solace can be found in the fact that Richard was on his way home after finishing doing what he loved to do, helping students at Pacific Grove High School.

PG High hosted a memorial on Saturday, February 25th where more than 1,000 former athletes, fellow teachers and school friends, and members of the community honored his memory and shared stories of Richard's impact on their lives. Following the service, the crowd walked around the track together in his memory.

Success never is easily achieved; one must always be willing to pay a much higher price that the opponent. So it will be again this year--there will be fun, there will be play, there will be feelings of following, feelings of leadership, feelings of fellowship, there will be feelings of accomplishment, there will be a bit of the intangible called "glory" now and then--and there will be hard, occasionally disagreeable work--work when it is sunny and you would rather play, work when it is cold an wet and you would rather be home. When you cheerfully accept this picture of success and work, you have joined the men and women of the cross country team.

   -From a letter of introduction to the cross country team, 1974