It's been a long time since Royal High head coach Gene Uebelhardt started at running back for the 1971 NAIA Division II national championship winning Cal Lutheran football team, yet the memories continue to grow sweeter by the day.

At the height of the Vietnam War, the Cal Lutheran squad was a combination of young men fresh out of high school and older veterans who'd served their country in Southeast Asia.

"It means more to me now than it did when I was 19," Uebelhardt, 54, said. "It was a great team and a completely different time in our country. A lot of the guys on the team were beneficiaries of the G.I. Bill. We had a tremendous amount of guys who'd come back from Vietnam."

Several players from the '71 team would go on to play or work in the NFL, including current Detroit Lions head coach Rod Marinelli.

Uebelhardt, meanwhile, made his own career plans after graduating from Cal Lutheran two years later with a history degree.

His original goal was to join the L.A. Fire Department, but his reporting date for training was a month before school finished.

Gene Uebelhardt"I wasn't going to give up college with four weeks left until I graduated," he said.

The wait paid off for Uebelhardt when he was told of a vacant coaching position at Santa Clara High in Oxnard. The school was searching for a freshman running backs coach, and Uebelhardt quickly threw his name into the mix.

"I said, 'Great, I'm your guy,'" Uebelhardt said. "I thought I'd do it for a year while I was getting ready for the fire department. But here I am 30-something years later and I'm still coaching football."

At Santa Clara, Uebelhardt worked under Lou Cvijanovich, a member of the National High School Hall of Fame.

In his coaching career in basketball, baseball and football, Cvijanovich posted an overall record of 1,091-366-4, winning 39 league championships, 16 section titles and 16 Ventura County Coach of the Year awards.

"He's probably the greatest high school coach-not just football coach but coach-of all time," Uebelhardt said. "He won CIF championships in three different sports. He's a legend in Ventura County."

Uebelhardt relocated to the Si

Gene Ue erra Mountains for his first head coaching job but returned to the Conejo Valley shortly thereafter to work as an assistant coach at Royal.

After two seasons at Royal, Uebelhardt was hired as offensive coordinator at Cal Lutheran, where he once again would work under a county coaching legend in Bob Shoup.

"I've had the good fortune of coaching under maybe the two best coaches ever in Ventura County," he said.

Uebelhardt coached with Shoup for 10 seasons before returning to Royal to become head coach. In 18 seasons at Royal, Uebelhardt has won a pair of Marmonte League championships-in 1991 and 2004.

The '91 title was the Highlanders' first league championship in football and remains a special moment in the coach's career.

"Winning the first championship at Royal was a benchmark," he said.

"But the greatest gift of all is to see these guys that I've coached become men," Uebelhardt said. "To see how successful they are, they could be doctors or lawyers or businessmen, and they still come back and call me Coach U. I tell them just to call me Gene, but they usually say they can't do it."

Staying true to his college major, Uebelhardt remains a history buff and continues to utilize that knowledge when it comes time to motivate his players.

"I do it all the time," he said. "I bring up different things that happened in history, or great men and what they did, and try and correlate that into a game that we're going to play."

In recent years Uebelhardt has seen two of his three sons graduate. His oldest boy, Kyle, played quarterback at Dartmouth last season before suffering a career ending back injury. Cody Uebelhardt graduated last month and will attend Chico State.

Uebelhardt lives in Moorpark with his wife of 26 years, Kim, his youngest son, Kevin, and Cody (until he leaves for college).

He said beating longtime rival Simi Valley will always remain a top priority for his teams.

"For us, you have to beat Simi," he said. "It's a big deal in that valley. We like beating everybody equally, and we feel bad when we lose regardless of who it is, but at Royal, regardless of the sport, I don't care if it's a competition between bands or the drama department, you have to beat Simi."