Rosemary Dugard, wife of former coach Alan Dugard, ‘lived and breathed Warrior softball’

Rosemary Dugard loved being at Woodbridge softball games. (Photo courtesy Dugard family)

Rosemary Dugard, the wife of long-time Woodbridge High softball coach Alan Dugard, died on Tuesday, July 2 at the age of 83 after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, her family confirmed Friday.

“The softball world lost a wonderful friend and fan this Tuesday,” said Wooodbridge softball coach Jerry Rose. “Rosemary lived and breathed Warrior softball.”

Rosemary Dugard played a key role in supporting Woodbridge softball teams while her husband, Alan was the head coach. She was heavily involved in the Woodbridge Softball Classic, later re-named the Alan Dugard Classic.

Rosemary Dugard was along for an exciting ride. Coach Dugard, who retired as head coach in 2014, led Woodbridge to four CIF titles and 15 league crowns. He continues to teach at Woodbridge.

“Umpires fondly remember her baking cookies for them during the early years of our tournament,” Rose said. “She always spread her smiles and sweet nature around Woodbridge games. 

“Rosemary was beyond kind to my wife Cindy and I through the years. She was just a wonderful person.”

A Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, July 9 at 10 a.m. at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Irvine and the public is welcome to attend. There will also be a reception to celebrate her life afterwards.

Rosemary Dugard was born outside of Boston on Aug. 1, 1935. She met Alan Dugard when she was working as an airline stewardess and he was in the Air Force.

“She was working out of Boston with TWA and she had other stewardess friends who were dating Air Force Pilots, so they went to a Christmas party and she met him Christmas Eve of 1959,” said one of the couple’s daughters, Mary Harney. “They were married in 1960.”

“She was with TWA and then once she married my dad, she was an Air Force wife and he had two tours of duty in Viet Nam so she took on the role of comforting all the other wives and holding the parties and trying to keep all those women together during really hard times. She took second fiddle a little bit to my dad’s ambitous career but she held everything together for the family.”

The couple went on to have five children: Martin, Matthew, Monique, Mark and Mary. Monique and Mark are deceased. The couple also have eight grand-children.

The couple moved to Irvine in 1980 after Alan Dugard retired from the Air Force.

Then, they took up an interest in youth softball.

“I started playing softball in the 80’s and they both started coaching,” Mary Harney said. “She was the manager and he coached my softball teams. She was always the manager and the team mom and my dad was always the coach.

“Around the time I graduated from high school, my dad decided he wanted to get into high school coaching, so my mom just kind of slid into that role as well. She had already been around softball for years and she had no kids in high school anymore but she wanted to help out. When they had the tournament every Easter in Irvine, she wanted to help out organizing the umpires and she would go out to all of the games and she knew a lot of the teams and the parents and a lot of the girls that played.”

Rosemary Dugard also put endless hours working in the concession stand at the Woodbridge softball tournament, which was a major fund-raiser for Woodbridge softball.

“When they first started the Easter tournament, she was one of the organizers of the snack bar,” Mary Harney said. “That was something she did every year. All the umpires knew who she was because she was a big personality. They all remembered her and she remembered all of them. She just had a good rapport.

“She loved softball and she loved all the people that she could talk to and loved the personalities. She’s just one of those people who loved the excitement of it. Even when I played, she would get really involved in the games. If there were bad calls, she would be on the sidelines yelling. She was one of those people who never held back. She was really compassionate about it.”

Mary Harney said her mother had many qualities that stood out.

“Her passion, her enthusiasm, she just was infectious, like everybody remembers her,” she said. “She wasn’t shy, she told all of her kids that we could do whatever we wanted in life and she really pushed us to be better than we imagined we could be. She wanted us to travel the world and be accomplished and always encouraged us. She was just a fun person.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com