St. Helena High School Athletic Hall of Fame: Hoppe helped end 30-plus-year playoff skids

The year 2013 saw the graduation of Richard Joseph Hoppe, and if the St Helena High School athletics is in fact this community‟s religion than he was circumcised in Fleur-de-lis with the red christening gown.

St. Helena Saints athletics have been Hoppe’s purview even prior to him enrolling as the Saints’ student-athlete in the first semester of the year 2009/2010.

After the death of his grandfather Richard Joseph Hoppe in 2019, and father Tom Hoppe, Richard had immense interaction with the athletic accompaniments of the Saint as a child accompanying his father who used to be the athletic director and head coach of boy’s basketball team.

Many years later Richard being a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and baseball played baseball at the college level for Boise State University.

Richard and Tom are two out of seven to be take in the 2024 class of the SHHS Athletic hall of Fame on nov. 2 at Native sons hall. Richard will be one of five athletes, along with Ron Berg (1959), Jeffery Warren (1966), Rianne Geyer Pasquariello (1978) and Matt Cia (1988). Tom one of the proud 1977 alumni will be inducted in the dispensated service category. The team in baseball will be inducted in the Greatest Teams category which was introduced this year.

“I am glad to be part of this group,” Richard said. It is personal accolade, but I could not have made it without my team mates and coaches. igen detain under my name but it feels like a big group achievement. I am going to have all my teammates and coaches come and probably take them to celebrate with them some of the credit too.

Richard amplified that being inducted with his father is befitting. Tom wore many hats throughout his career but could be best characterized as the athletic director of the University of West Florida (1998–2021) and the boys basketball head coach of the University of West Florida (1999–2008; 2011–2014). When Tom was not coaching Richard, the latter was training with the Carpy Gang football, Saints athletics, Short Shooters, basketball for Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School, and Little League baseball for St. Helena.

“When I think about it, all the way from the St. Helena Primary School that he started with, he would walk to the high school every day after school and go to either football practice, basketball practice or baseball practice,” Tom further said. “If there were games, he was at the high school more than most of the teachers were.”

Richard also said that despite the challenges of being a son of the athletic director and coach, the pros definitely outnumber the cons.

There is always something like chitter chatter here and there about things like you know, favoritism and all that but I don’t know, I think I could put in so much hard work I kind of know I could He stated that. Damn it! Richard interjected, Don’t tell me it wasn’t too much of a problem?” That old gym holds some of the best childhood memories for me. It didn’t matter if it was away basketball games or late football games, I’d ride the bus home with them. He would go home and phone the paper to relay the results of the games. I’d go to the gym and start bouncing the ball, tossing the ball. I did anything to waste time. I truly enjoyed going with my father to all the games and having a lot of time together with him.”

As soon as Richard joined SHHS as a student-athlete, he immediately began to sit on top of the fence, or get into the catbird seat. In football he played three years of varsity starting roles as quarterback for three teams that played in CIF North Coast section playoffs and two of them as league champions. At that time the select Saints carved out a record of 27-9 which comprised of three post season performances, the first time the team had done it in football since 1977.

He set seven career records and four single season records which included 4, 441 passing yards and 55 touchdowns. On the All-Napa County team as a senior, Hoppe was chosen as the Offenisve Player of the Year. Second, he was all North Central League I twice and all county in junior year.

Hoppe was also one of two representatives for the Northern California Chapter of the National Football Foundation, which is a scholar-athlete award. Hoppe played a back for Napa County while American Canyon’s Jonathan Bade played the lineman for the award.

Hoppe was a two-year letterman in basketball and a starting point guard. Even on the basketball court, his numbers were not quite as impressive as in football or baseball; however, he was All-County and All-NCL I twice as well as All-County Honorable Mention as a junior. In his senior year he averaged 9.9 points and 7.1 assists per game.

Hoppe was a three year varsity player for baseball as part of the NCL I championship team for two consecutive years. In his junior season he was all-league and All-County. During his last campaign, he was the NCL I MVP and player of the year in the All-County list. After high school started, during Hoppe’s junior year, the Saints posed their first playoff victory since 1978.

Hoppe being a senior was the Co-Male Athlete of the Year for the Napa Valley Register along with Justin-Siena’s Marcus Armstrong-Brown while he was Small School Male Athlete of the Year for Redwood Empire. He was also a finalist for the Northern California Pitcher of the Year. Hoppe had.361 average 22 IBR, 12 SB & 14 runs to his remark. He was 6-1 as a starter with an earned run average of 0.49.

He said: “I remember football season used to end on Friday or Saturday then on Monday it is basketball. The same thing would happen with basketball. They filmed it and you’d get eliminated on a Thursday and the next thing you know, you have baseball practice or a game.

“It is always good to be involved in three major games.” I realized that there are altogether different things taught in each sport that could be applied to each of them in its own way. From baseball to football, to releasing the ball lower, as is becoming the trend nowadays. The things one learns include such items as passing lanes and windows and how one places and predicts people’s movements. Three sports was a blessing in disguise because it helped me improve all three sports.”

Following graduation from High school, Hoppe like his childhood friend and teammate Charles Bertoli became a member of the Boise State football team as a walk on player. Bertoli graduated from St. Helena in 2012 and was selected for the Hall of Fame class in 2022.

Hoppe then went on to play club baseball and was teammates with Brian Begerow, a 2012 SHHS graduate for two years. She also represented the Broncos as a shortstop, and she had scored a.405 career bat and had 43 RBI. The Boise State baseball is not actually affiliated with the NCAA. Kalamazoo College Broncos participates in National Collegiate Baseball Association. Their conference members are Montana State, Utah, Idaho State, Weber State and Utah State.

“I was telling her that it was as difficult as Division II or III,” said Hoppe. Because I then know some Division I schools that are NCAA like Oregon. Some of them also have uptier club team which they feed it. If they didn’t feel like a kid was ready to make the roster, they’d put them on the club team and develop. That competition was so intense; it felt as though we were up against a ton of other teams. I was privileged to feature in the football team for one term. Most importantly, I got to know a lot from Coach (Chris) Peterson on and about him as a person. I only got to know him for a year but he changed my life anyway. This is true because, as I mentioned Club baseball enabled me to carry on with my athletic pursuits.

Hoppe graduated from Boise State in 2017 with a bachelor of arts degree in criminal justice and returned to St.Helena for two years. He then living in Austria for three years serving as a personal assistant of Trevor Traina, the U.S. Ambassador to Austria before coming back to St Helena.

Lately, it has relocated to Bergen County, New Jersey, the geographical area of his fiancée, Brigette. The couple is expected to marry in October 2025. If Hoppe is indeed a high school graduate, he works as a sales representative for Yelp.

Looking forward to his Hall of Fame induction, Hoppe sometimes wonders how it all started. Apart from loitering around his dad’s basketball teams he would act as a ball boy for the Friday night’s Saints’ team.

“I remember as a kid getting a Fisher Price basketball hoop for my room,” he said. They also influenced me to remember shooting the balls through the hoop any time of the day that I could. Being surrounded by sports throughout my childhood and having my grandfather who liked sports helps me. I have had experience as a ball boy for the late coach (Ian) MacMillan. But I was always in that team environment all the time. ”I got to be even part of something larger than myself.”

Even some of the high school football funny recollections that Hoppe shared connected kids to playing football with the Carpy Gang. The thing that really got me however, was in the middle of the Little League season. Alex Quirici and Begerow fertilized Hoppe’s team while future high school teammates like Joey & Danny Brink, Johnny Wignall and Jimmy Figueroa were the competitiors met at Little League level.

“We were always die-hard competitors, but then in Carpy Gang we kinda winked with Artie Carr,” explained Hoppe about the SHHS Hall of Fame inductee in 2021 who died this summer on June 26 at the age of 89. But Paul and I did have some good times with Artie. We remained close friends and both further developed throughout our high school years. We practiced hard every day. That’s right Some of my core memories of high school were being with those guys. They are some of my favourite friends as we are today.

It may have been in the off-season running those routes on air 7 on 7, training as a team, challenging each other. The process translates the whole affair into functioning. And then you get into the season, you’re watching film at the fourth period and lunchtime. Every day you work on the things that will make you greater. This is the reason our group was different from other teams in the league. We were not lazy enough to endanger our chances of success while we were at it.

However, looking at sports as an athlete is something that Hoppe left in the past, the lessons learned are valid today.

“Determination, dedication, employee retention, resilience, faith in the system. I found myself being able to say a lot more,” he added. Sports as a whole are the best for the youth to feel that they belong to something better than their selves. It’s not like you are promising somebody to be there for a bulk of time say a year, let alone three or four months. According to the schedule, we practiced three sports every year. It was 12 months out of the year and apart from Saturday mornings and Sunday there were not many off days.”

While at Boise State he had Bertoli and Begerow for company, but it was during his time away from St. Helena where he had grown most he said.

“Surrounded by various types of individuals, sports are a equalizer for kids, races, ethnicities, religion,” he said. ‘Through these things and being out of St. Helena, you get more understanding about life, people and cultures.’

One is very fortunate to be born at this place; St. Helena. It’s an amazing community. That was maybe the best period of my childhood, I really enjoyed those years. What I find most appreciable is that my parents are still around. It will always be home.”

As Tom and Richard spent a lot of time together over the years, it is appropriate that they will be sharing the screen — with Richard Sr. beaming at them from above.