After 20 Years, Leo Tuck Hanging Up His Whistle as Grossmont Coach

Leo Tuck is 86 and moves slowly between innings. But when he exits the first-base coaching job at the end of Grossmont’s softball season, he’ll be missed as a mentor and confidant.

After 20 years as an unpaid assistant, Tuck is retiring from the Hillers, where he supplied emotional support as much as skill instruction.

“That’s my purpose—to distract them from [their problems] and get their mind back in the ball game, be focused,” he said.

Problems such as?

“You have all kinds of issues—boyfriends mostly,”  Tuck said Saturday after Grossmont High School wrapped up its regular season with a 7-1 victory over host Helix. “I try to be a positive influence in their lives.”

Tuck, who lives in nearby Fletcher Hills, has played a lot of softball himself (including pitching), but he ran track and played basketball in high school.  He said he was on San Diego State’s basketball team for three years before his 1951 graduation.

In his work career, he started as a teacher and taught sixth grade for six years in El Cajon schools before becoming a principal for 27 years—first at the former Emerald Junior High School and later Montgomery and Greenfield middle schools.

He started coaching at Grossmont to help a former softball coach—a friend of his, he says. 

He doesn’t have a favorite Foothiller team from his two decades of coaching, saying: “Oh, they’re so many of them—I’ve loved them all. I’ve really enjoyed this experience.”

His wife passed away some time back and his children have moved away—to Oceanside, Phoenix and La Verne. So what does Tuck plan to do now?

“Relax.”