Ray Odette, head football coach at Dixie High, is a low-profile survivor in a high-profile, high-turnover profession. The heat is always on prep sports coaches, who are gone after an average of, say, a half-dozen seasons - victims of burnout or being fired.
By contrast, Odette is starting his fourth decade of football coaching this season - including more than a quarter of a century as a head football coach on the high school level.To what can his durability be credited? Perhaps having spent most of his career away from the media-rich Wasatch Front area in Monticello, Ephraim and St. George. Perhaps adhering to coaching principles and attitudes that even Odette himself admits as being "corny." Or, according to his peers, perhaps having a penchant for preparation and an ability to change with the times.
From the start of the 1960s to the start of the 1990s, Odette has had a sideline pass to the ever-changing world of prep football. "The kids are so much better conditioned and so much stronger and there are more sophisticated offenses," he said. "When I started, there were no triple options, no veer offenses - those weren't even in the vocabulary."
About the only thing that hasn't changed is Odette himself. He's described by former players and fellow coaches as a stickler for detail and discipline - one who expects the best efforts from his players and then motivates them to play as such.
"Ray has the ability to coach a kid and get him to do the best he can," said Spanish Fork Coach Doug Snell, a former Dixie assistant under Odette.
"He has the knack to get it done - the kids respect him and people know that he's going to treat their kids right . . . .
"He's solid - he's what we need more of."
A California native who grew up in Monticello and played football at Monticello High, Odette had set certain goals in life that he would quickly realize. He attended Notre Dame - "I always wanted to go there," he said - as a freshman and was enthralled while there by watching Paul Horning excel on the gridiron.
Something else that Odette was certain about was coaching. He finished his final three years of college at the University of Utah. "I attended every practice for three years," he remembered, wanting to soak up the atmosphere, the procedures and the opportunities.
Here's the abbreviated career time-line for Odette, who started the 1960s as an assistant coach for several seasons at Judge Memorial before moving back to Monticello High for nine years, where he would double as head coach for both the Buckaroo football and basketball programs.
After taking Monticello to the finals several seasons earlier, Odette coached the Buckaroos to the 2A state football title in 1969. Following another runner-up season at Monticello in 1970, he spent the next year at Jordan, helping the Beetdiggers make the state playoffs.
In 1972, he took over a struggling football program at Snow College. One of his former players there, current Weber High Coach Glenn Prisk, remembers the Badgers dropping their first few games of the season, only to suddenly right themselves and win the conference championship.
"Ray came in and calmed things down," said Prisk. "He's got an air of confidence about him - everything is on the up."
Odette would last only three seasons at Snow, but his departure didn't equate with a lack of success, since the Badgers finished second in both his final two seasons there. "I just like the high school kids better," he said.
The next stop was his current stomping ground at Dixie, arriving in 1975 - the same year that the St. George school stepped up in size classification from 2A to 3A. The Flyers were runners-up to Davis for the 1976 3A championship and later advanced to the semifinals several other occasions - the last time being in 1988.
Last year, Dixie boasted one of its strongest teams, thanks to an experienced line, a veteran quarterback-safety in Tom Brown and the dynamic backfield duo of fullback Mike Smith and halfback Tyler Wilkinson. But the top-ranked and previously undefeated Flyers suffered a heartbreaking 42-41 triple-overtime loss to Woods Cross in the 3A quarterfinals.
One constant during the past three decades of coaching has been his family - his four children and his wife of 30 years, the former Rose Mele of Price.
"We've seen a few football games in our time," says the 52-year-old Odette.
Odette's attitudes and principles seem to be a throwback to the era in which he started coaching - somewhat subdued, often unassuming, seldom self-promoting.
Ask him of his accomplishments, and you won't get an annual listing of wins and losses. "I haven't done much, I've just hung around," says Odette in his "aw, shucks" voice.
Question him of his coaching highlights, and you won't get a play-by-play from his memory. "It's the association with the kids year in and year out," he says. "I know that sounds corny, but that's what I enjoy."
Request a summary of his career so far, and he'll remain as intangible - and honest - as ever. "Hopefully I've some some kind of influence on the kids."
Prisk considers Odette an unappreciated influence in Utah high school sports. "He's really an oversight in this area - You don't hear a lot about him," he said. "But he's got the touch of Midas - everything he touches turns to gold. And he's quiet about it."