LJ baseball: Al LaMotte

By Ed Piper
"I didn't play football at La Jolla High," remembers Alan (Al) LaMotte, one of four Viking baseball coaches on the mound for the ceremonial opening pitch at the 25th Alumni Game Sat., March 1. "My parents wouldn't sign the consent form."

One uncle had suffered a damaged knee. That was the justification LaMotte's father and mother gave him for holding him out of the sport.

"But later I played," he said, ranging behind the baseball backstop on the Muirlands Middle School complex during the game. "At 21, I didn't have to have my parents sign the consent form."

The LJHS Class of 1953 alumnus, though, is in the Viking Baseball Hall of Fame because of his head baseball coaching at his alma mater for 14 seasons from Spring 1968 through 1981. Amazingly, La Jolla has only had four head baseball coaches over the past half century--hence, the observance Saturday at the Alumni Game.

Morning rain gave way to beautiful sunny skies for the annual event. Under the circumstances, LaMotte wasn't disinclined to answer a few questions and spin a few stories. "Do you want to take a picture of me now?" he asked, after tentative arrangements had been made for a full-on interview in the future at his home in Coronado.

The former math and physical education teacher (he taught at La Jolla from 1966 to 1981) recounted playing center field for American Legion Post 606 in La Canada, near Pasadena. "At Pasadena Post 13, there were more players than they could use," LaMotte said. "So they started a baseball team at the American Legion in La Canada."

"I played center field pretty much throughout," said the retired coach of his two years as a student at La Jolla High after transferring from John Muir High School in Pasadena. Muir was a combined junior college and high school in its earlier days. Baseball was the only sport he played at LJHS due to his parents' refusal to sign the consent form for football.

LaMotte went on to attend Pasadena City College for two years, then he graduated from Occidental College in Eagle Rock in 1959.

Asked about today's high school sports, he said, "I think parents' expectations are higher than they used to be. Or I'd say their wishes. I think it was better when you could play three or four sports (instead of being confined to one)."