11:30am | A local legend has passed, as longtime girls volleyball and basketball coach Pauline “Polly” Pope passed earlier this month after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Pope redefined the role of the young female athlete through her coaching and teaching.
Pope taught and coached at Lakewood St. Joseph’s High from 1964 to 1978, moving to St. Anthony’s until 1994 and then Millikan High until retiring in 2002. Her students and athletes excelled wherever she went, but it was during her St. Anthony’s years that Pope molded championship programs that still define the school’s athletics department.
“Polly was just amazing,” said Marcel Viens, her Athletic Director for several years and currently the Assistant to the Principal at St. Anthony. “She was all about her students, all about others. She was a wonderful leader, a very compassionate woman. I don’t think there was anybody who didn’t have a real strong sense of respect for her.”
Her basketball teams at St. Joseph tore through the local competition, winning an impressive nine championships in twelve years (1967-78) at the St. Anthony Girls’ Basketball Tournament, the longest running tournament in all of the CIF. Her best work was still yet to come.
Pope constructed a St. Anthony girls volleyball program that quickly shot up through the ranks. A few short years after she took over, the team was moved up into the top CIF level of competition and the Lady Saints routinely hung League Championship banners and made trips to the CIF Championship. When her daughter Carla came on board to assist in 1985, the program exploded. The Lady Saints earned five consecutive Sunset League titles and four CIF title appearances. Pope announced a quasi-retirement in 1990 and assisted as Carla took the reigns.
The following 1991 season, the Lady Saints won their league yet again and also captured the State Championship, the first ever earned by any St. Anthony program in the school’s 71-year history.
“I was her Athletic Director but I guarantee that I learned more from her than she could have from me,” said Viens, who is working to organize a 20-year reunion for the 1991 State Championship team. He regretted that Pope will not be able to attend, but laughed when asked if he believes she will be there in spirit. “Without a doubt. Walk into any St. Anthony gym and you can still see Polly on the sidelines.”
Services will be held at St. Cyprian Catholic Church in Long Beach on Friday, August 20 with a 12:30pm rosary and 1:00pm Mass. A celebration of Pope’s life will be held in the adjacent Parish Hall, and her family suggests “Hawaiian” casual attire. In lieu of flowers, her children suggest donations to the Polly Pope Scholarship Fund at St. Anthony High School.