Robert Enger

Robert Randall Enger December 12, 1934-December 12, 2024

Bob Enger passed away in his sleep with a full head of hair in Covina, California minutes after turning 90 years old. He was born to Horace and Virginia Enger in Chicago, Illinois. As a young boy, he moved with his parents and younger sister Betsy to Monterey Park where he acquired a lifelong scar to his chin daredevil biking down the El Encanto Cascade. He graduated from Mark Keppel High and, after a semester at East Los Angeles College, enrolled at UCLA on a football scholarship.

Bob met his lifetime love Marcia Kelley during a fraternity party his freshman year. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi and the legendary Red Sanders single wing football teams, including the 1956 Rose Bowl and 1954 National Championship squads. He also played a season for the Orange County Rhinos. He was commissioned into the Army Reserve upon graduation and honorably discharged as a Captain.

He married Marcia in 1956 and embarked on a career teaching and coaching football with stints at West Covina High, Bell High, East Los Angeles College, Cal State LA, and Pierce College. His 1962 Bell team won the Eastern League in his second year, two years removed from a winless season, and his 1968 East Los Angeles Huskies went 11-1, losing only in the state junior college championship game.

His coaching eventually became more an avocation than a career, and he parlayed that into spending several summers with Marcia in Europe coaching American football in Finland, Germany, and Spain. His 1995 Dusseldorf Panthers won the Euro Bowl. Prior to that, he coached the San Gabriel High freshmen for one year and the Cantwell Cardinals for two. He retired after 30 years with the Los Angeles Community College District, the vast majority of them at East Los Angeles College where he taught PE, Real Estate, coached tennis and helped out with the baseball team. He also spent two years in Korea and Japan administrating the LACCD program for US service members. While in Korea, he found time to coach his sons' football team, the Yongsan Chiefs, to the 1974 Korean Championship.

He and Marcia built a house on a vacant lot in Covina in 1966 and raised three boys: Jahn, Mike and Bill. Amongst many activities with his kids, he backpacked with Troop 472 over Kearsarge Pass, Mt. Whitney, and Taboose Pass. After putting his sons through college and law school, he and Marcia bought a second home in Dana Point and devoted their retirements to their sons and grandchildren, but also found time to travel the world and tend to their rental properties. Bob was a long-time active member of the Niguel Shores Men's Club and Monday Night Poker Group, and the Harbor Creek Homeowners Association, but his biggest role in retirement was as Marcia's constant companion and full-time honey-do. He loved his UCLA Bruins. He was a regular at the Rose Bowl, and oftentimes travelled cross-country to see them play. He spent baseball season listening to the Dodgers on the radio. He rarely said no to dessert.

For a time, he took up skiing, sailing, golf, vegetable gardening, cabinetmaking and antique clock restoration, but he never stopped reading western paperbacks, playing low stake poker and fishing for trout in the Eastern Sierra, a love that he inherited from his father and passed on to his sons. He was a master of the fly and bobber technique but could haul them in from just about anywhere at any time, so long as they were biting. As such, and per his longtime and explicit instructions, his remains will be placed at a secret location high in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

Bob is survived by his beloved wife of 68 years Marcia, his sons Jahn(Michele), Mike(Reina) and Bill(Shelley), sister Elizabeth, eight grandchildren: Jessica, Kelli, Kenneth, Matthew, Anna, Randall, Sofia and Katherine, eight great grandchildren: Wes, Miles, Juniper, Forrest, Monty, Reese, Joslin and Marigold, and his three Johnson nieces: Kelene, Leslie and Beth. A celebration of his life will take place on January 11, 2025 in Covina, CA.