Linfielder Umbarger – call him Dwight, Yogi or Joe -- tells interesting tales

:::Sad news. Email from Bob Ferguson said Dwight Umbarger died 3/6/2016. The following story was written by Wildcatville in March 2015 (year is correct) based on research and a phone interview. Dwight was sent a draft of the story for his review/editing. But, he never returned it. Some slight edits were made to the draft before posting this. But, please realize this story might have inaccuracies. :::

Dwight (also known as “Yogi” and Joe”) Umbarger, Linfield Class of 1958, has connections to the Portland’s Cleveland High School Warriors (then Indians), Oregon State College Beavers, University of Colorado Buffaloes, Grays Harbor College Chokers (Aberdeen, Wash.), Linfield College Wildcats and more.

Dwight Elis Umbarger was born in 1934 on his grandparents’ ranch in Colorado. He loved life there, helping his grandfather with milling lumber, running cattle, hauling grain and harvesting wheat.

In 1947, he moved to Oregon when his father, Charles Dwight Umbarger, a Union Pacific Railroad chef, was transferred to Portland. See Footnotes.

Umbarger had to acclimate to urban life. In Portland he’d look out a window in his home and see neighbors. In Colorado he saw scenic ranch land. “It took me about three years getting used to living in Portland. I ran away from home three times and because of that had to repeat seventh grade,” he said.

When he moved to Oregon, he’d never played baseball. He made up for it. From ages 16 to 47 he was a semi-pro baseball player for Portland teams. He with the Columbia League’s Merchants of Portland’s Moreland-Sellwood area where he lived. Later, he played for the Portland Colts and Norgan’s Dodgers of the City League.

At Portland’s Cleveland High School, he played football, basketball and baseball.

In 2006 and 2007 respectively, he was enshrined in the 2006 Commerce-Cleveland High School Alumni Association and Portland Interscholastic League Halls of Fame, recognizing his football and baseball prowess. See Footnotes.

Umbarger graduated from Cleveland in 1953 and played on the All-City team in the Class A Shrine All-Star football vs. the State All-Stars in the game played that summer in Portland’s Multnomah Stadium.

It appeared he might go to college to play football and baseball at Notre Dame (football coach Frank Leahy, later to live in Lake Oswego) or Colorado (football coach Dallas Ward).

However, Oregon State grad/Portland contractor Charles Parker (for whom Oregon State’s football stadium was named until it became Reser) wanted him to play those two sports for the Beavers. Kip Taylor and Ralph Coleman were the respective Beaver football and baseball coaches.

Umbarger walked on at Oregon State College and earned a football scholarship. However, after practicing football three weeks (before Oregon State classes had started) in Corvallis he was asked to relinquish the scholarship so it could go another player. Umbarger said “screw you,” hopped a train and ended up Boulder and enrolled at the University of Colorado (where his sister had attended/graduated).

See Footnotes for a photo showing Umbarger as a member of the 1953 OSC Rooks freshman football team. He never enrolled at OSC nor played for the team, but he did get his photo in the 1954 OSC Beaver yearbook.

At the University of Colorado, he played on its freshman football team, but was injured in a game, totally hyperextending his left knee. Because of the injury he tried to withdraw from all of his classes before going back to Portland. But, professors of two classes would not comply. That gave him an abysmal academic transcript.

He improved his grade point average a bit by attending Portland State College in spring 1954.

“I’d been talking to Roy Helser (Linfield baseball and assistant football coach) and “Doc” Whitman (Avard Whitman, Linfield registrar and NWC faculty athletic representative) about transferring to Linfield.

“Helser knew me because I played for a team against the Black Sox” of Drain (Oregon) team of which Helser managed and played of the southwest Oregon Sawdust League.

To continue improving his GPA to gain admission to Linfield, he attended Grays Harbor (junior) College in Aberdeen, Wash. Umbarger was to attend Grays Harbor, but not participate in sports. However he did have a job working with the college’s “Chokers” football team taping players’ ankles and handling other duties. See Footnotes.

But, while at Grays Harbor football practices, Umbarger “could see that even with a bad leg, I could outrun any offensive back on the team, plus and I liked to run into people.”

After completing the 1954-1955 academic year at Grays Harbor – he did not play baseball for the college -- he transferred to Linfield in the fall of 1955.

“Roy Helser was mad at me,” said Umbarger. “If I had let my leg heal and concentrated on baseball it would have helped my baseball career.” Nonetheless, he starred in both football and baseball for the Wildcats.

At Linfield, the 5-foot-10 and 195-pound Umbarger was a running back and linebacker and football squib kicker for Coach Paul Durham’s football Wildcats.

At one point during his Linfield football career, Umbarger averaged 9.1 yards a carry. Part of the credit was his speed and his quick start. Umbarger and Howard Morris shared Linfield’s 1957 Arnold Huntley Memorial Plaque (most inspiration player award.)

For Helser’s Linfield baseball team, the left-handed Umbarger was a speedy outfielder with a good arm and a left-handed power hitter.

Durham and Helser would “never swear what so ever. They’d get as upset as any coach, but never swear,” Umbarger said.

Umbarger earned a bachelor of science degree in biology from Linfield in 1958 as well as a teaching certificate. “I surprised a hell of a lot of people” by earning my degree. Coach Durham was instrumental in me I got through college. He always insisted his players complete their education.

“I was among players who looked at Paul as a father figure. And I looked at him also as a great singer, too. We sang together in the McMinnville First Baptist Church choir,” Umbarger said.

Umbarger lettered in football in the 1955, 1956 (NWC champ and start of “the Streak”) and 1957 (NWC champ) seasons. His letters in baseball were in the 1956 (NWC champ), 1957 and 1958 seasons.

After college, Umbarger said he signed a professional baseball contract and then played for teams in Idaho and New York state. The next season he went to baseball spring training in Florida, but then the U.S. Army called.

(While a student at the University of Colorado, he was in Army ROTC. At Linfield, he did Army Reserve duty in McMinnville.)

He ended up at Fort Carson (Colorado) for mountain and airborne jump training. Then, it was off to serve at Fort Clayton, a U.S. Army base in the Panama Canal Zone. While there he taught at the Army’s warfare school.

Later, he attended transportation school at Eustis (Fort), Newport News in Virginia.  Even later, he was discharged from the Army.

After completing his military duty he apparently taught and coached on the Oregon coast, at Siletz and Newport High Schools.

Then, a career change bought him back to Portland. He worked almost 40 years as fleet manager for Ross Island Sand & Gravel.

In Portland, he was involved in CYO/Catholic Youth Organization football and for 17 years was president of the CYO Coaches Association. He also helped with the Little League baseball program which fed baseball at Rex Putnam High School in Milwaukie. See Footnotes.

Umbarger and his wife volunteered for the Portland’s Blanchet House of Hospitality to “feed, clothe, and offer shelter and aid to those in need.”

FOOTNOTES

To see larger renditions of the photos below, click on each photo.

==His “Yogi” nickname? That came about when some friends compared his baseball playing ability to that of Yogi Berra of New York Yankees’ fame. And, “Joe?” For some, it was in response to the old refrain, “What do you know, Joe? An item in the Sunday Oregonian of April 19, 1953, said, “Dwight Umbarger, Cleveland all-city outfielder, is "variously known to teammates as Joe and Yogi, but seldom as Dwight."

==A Nov. 3, 1963 “Greg’s Gossip” sports column in the Oregonian by L. H. Gregory, then the newspaper’s sports editor, included mention of a Union Pacific passenger train trip he took east via Chicago. During the trip, Gregory visited with Matt Kruzich, dining car steward of the UP’s “palatial” City of Portland. “Matt took us through his dining car and kitchen,” wrote Gregory. “We met his chef, Charles Umbarger, 27 years as a railroad chef, and found a football fan as well. His son Dwight (Yogi) was a fullback and baseball outfielder at Linfield, graduating in ’58.”

==2006 Commerce-Cleveland High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame

http://cchsaahalloffame.blogspot.com/2012/06/1953-dwight-umbarger.html

Football: All-City and Shrine Game

Baseball: All-City, All-State, PIL Hitting Champion, Linfield All-Conference

Professional: Brooklyn Dodgers baseball

Little League Coach

NOTE: Umbarger says he still holds the Cleveland High and PIL career batting record at .291.

==2007 PIL Hall of Fame

http://pilhalloffame.org/cybermuseum/product_info.php?products_id=336

School: Cleveland (Commerce)

Sports Played: Football, Baseball

High School Honors: Three-year Football letter winner; Second Team All-PIL; First Team All-PIL; member of Shrine Team. Three-year Baseball letter winner; Two-time First Team All-PIL.

Post High School Career: All-Conference Football team at Grays Harbor CC. All-Conference Football Team at Linfield College; three-time All-Conference Baseball Team. Has served as president of CYO Coaches Association.

==Oregon State College Rooks (freshman) football team of 1953 appearing in 1954 Beaver student yearbook, Oregon State College, Corvallis, Ore. - Page 62. Oregon State Rooks (freshman) football team. Dwight Umbarger is on the far right in the third row.

==Grays Harbor College Football 1954 team photo from 1955 Grays Harbor College Nautilus yearbook.. Umbarger, wearing uniform #20, is in the front row, third from the right. In the third row, fourth from the left is Howard Glenn, who would become an Umbarger football teammate at Linfield.

==About the Chokers nickname: Grays Harbor College, a two year institution, is located in Aberdeen, Wash. The city is the economic center of the Grays Harbor County, bordering the cities of Hoquiam and Cosmopolis, says Wikipedia. Timber is one of the driving forces in the economy. The “Chokers” nickname for college teams is for a choker (or choke), a logger who attaches cables to logs for retrieval by skidders or skylines.

==Photos from Linfield Oak Leaves yearbooks. In the football team photo, he’s fourth from the right. In the baseball team photo, Umbarger is in the front row, fourth from the left.

==At the time Umbarger was helping with the Little League program, Linfielder Larry Hermo was Putnam head baseball. One of Hermo’s standout Putnam players was Scott Bosius, who went on to star at Linfield baseball and for Oakland and the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. Brosius is a former Linfield head baseball coach.

.............

Dwight E. Umbarger (1934 - 2016)

Obit in Oregonian March 28-April 3, 2016. Photo here of Yogi appeared with obit. 

Umbarger, Dwight E. 81 Nov. 12, 1934 Mar. 06, 2016 Dwight was born in Loveland, Colo., to Charles and Margaret Umbarger. He graduated from Cleveland High School, Linfield College and was a teacher. Dwight played baseball and football at each school as well as semi-pro baseball. At the completion of his military duty, he worked for Ross Island Sand & Gravel. Dwight was involved with the Christian Youth Organization and Little League baseball programs. After retiring, his favorite part-time job was working at Brattain International. In earlier years, he loved to fish, camp, hunt and stay at his cabin at Mt. Hood. He spent every football season at Linfield with his tailgate friends. Wherever Dwight traveled in U.S. and Europe, he always seemed to know a friend by chance. Dwight is survived by his wife, Louise; children, Carol (Mark) and David (Sharon); one granddaughter; and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his sons, Jeffrey and Scott. A memorial Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 9, 2016, at Holy Family Catholic Church. Dwight will be deeply missed and the world will not be the same without his bright, sparkling smile and humor. Contributions may be made to The American Cancer Society or Oregon Humane Society.

Guest Book entries included:

April 11, 2016 from Dan Beeson, Lake Oswego, Ore. -- “Dwight was a great man and a true friend. Always wanting to help everyone in some way. I always told folks when Dwight was next to me that he was my body guard and he would give me that smile and that chuckle. He sat with me in the front row a Maxwell field for the last home game and I heard many a story. I miss Dwight.”

April 10, 2016 from Terry Durham, Beaverton, Ore. -- “I am so sorry about the passing of Dwight. He was a favorite of my father, Paul Durham. I got to know Yogi when I was a young child running around Linfield College. I always enjoyed getting together and spending time with Yogi. He will be sorely missed. I apologize for not being able to make it to the funeral. All my love.”

April 10, 2016 from Pete Dengenis -- “Yogi was a great Linfield Wildcat. His wit and humor will be missed.”

Dan Beeson (Class of 1970) about Dwight "Yogi" Umbarger (Class of 1958):

--Dan was among those at Yogi's memorial service on April 9, 2016. "It was well attended and the stories about Yogi had everyone laughing at the stunts he pulled in life,” said Dan. There was a great story by one of the players on the CYO baseball championship team of 1996 that Yogi coached. Ross Island Sand & Gravel drivers were there. One drove a Ross Island cement truck and parked it outside the building used for reception after the service.

--In about 1976 Yogi visited Dan (a chiropractic doctor) at the Beeson Chiropractic Center in Portland. Yogi asked Dan –who played basketball at Linfield -- if Dan would play for the alumni in the Linfield alumni-varsity football team coached by Terry Durham. Dan said, “yes.” Yogi got Dan pads, pants and a helmet from a Portland high school coach Yogi knew. In the game, Yogi, then about 42 years old, played running back. On one play, he fumbled the ball and reached down to pull the ball back to himself. At the same time, another alumni player, Jim Consbruck (Class of 1969) dove to the ball. Jim’s helmet hit Yogi’s left shoulder and dislocated it. Yogi rested a bit and returned to the game.

----“Dwight was a heck of a guy and always had a great story to tell. At age 80, he was still driving trucks up and down the freeways delivering a rebuild truck or picking up a used one to be rebuilt. No one in my practice (Beeson Chiropractic Center) guessed his age correctly, most of the time missing it by 8 to 10 years. I saw Dwight the week before he passed. He gave me Yogi smile as I left. I will miss Dwight, what a guy.”

DWIGHT UMBARGER – hard running right half for the Linfield Wildcats is expected to start at the right half position against the College of Idaho on Maxwell Field at 8:30 Saturday night. Umbarger is one of the hardest men on the Linfield club to bring down. This is a key NWC contest for both clubs. McMinnville Daily News Register – Thursday, Nov. 1, 1956. (News Register pix 8251.)